Free The Solomon Effect by C. S. Graham Page B

This is going to be simple.”
    She whirled to face him, her face tight. “Simple? You think this is simple? I’ve got a body to dispose of. That’s never simple, especially these days. This isn’t the Cold War anymore, you know. The Germans aren’t as understanding about these things as they used to be.”
    Jax held up his hands, palms outward. “I only meant you won’t need to worry about trace evidence. He didn’t evenleave prints in here.”
    Her frown deepening, she glanced around the room. “Where is he?”
    “In the closet.”
    At her nod, the two Marines opened the closet doors. Blue polyester cocoon unfurling, Tweed Coat flopped out. “Who is he?” she asked as the Marines moved to lift the body between them, one at the head, the other at the feet.
    “I don’t know.”
    She brought her gaze back to Jax’s face, her eyes narrowing. Her name wasn’t Petra, of course. Probably something like Gina Guiliani or Maria Centrello. She had that Sicilian look about her. She said, “I called Langley. They told me you’re just passing through here. So you—what? Had some time on your hands and just decided to kill someone?”
    Jax tried to clamp a lid on his temper. “I take it you’d have preferred I let the guy shoot me? You’d still have had a body to deal with, you know—only it would have been mine.”
    She shrugged. “We’d have just passed you off as some stupid dead tourist. We deal with dead tourists all the time. This—” She pointed to Tweed Coat, now being stuffed into the maid cart. “This is a political disaster waiting to happen. What do you think the Germans are going to do if we get caught with this dude? The boys here in Berlin don’t like it when we treat the place like it’s an American colony. It’d be different if we were in Cairo or Seoul or someplace like that.”
    He gave her what was supposed to be a disarming smile. “I have confidence in you, Petra.”
    It was a lie, of course. Until he found out how Tweed Coat came by that official photo, Jax wasn’t trusting anyone associated with the Company except Matt.
    She was neither disarmed nor charmed by Jax’s smile. She walked right up to him with a bandy rooster kind of strut,her hands on her hips as she leaned forward, head tilting back. “I’ve heard about you, Mr. Jax Alexander.” She said his name slowly, just in case he missed the fact she wasn’t using his alias anymore. “You’ve caused trouble every place from Guatemala to Indonesia and back. You don’t play by the rules. You’re a loose cannon. I don’t understand why you’re even still with the Company.”
    Jax picked up Tweed Coat’s gun and handed it to her. “Here. You might as well get rid of this while you’re at it.”
    He watched a dark tide of anger sweep up her face. “When do you leave?” she asked.
    “Tomorrow morning.”
    “Good.” She shoved the Walther in her bag and turned toward the door. “See if you can get out of here without killing anyone else, will you?”
    “I’ll try.”
    She waited for the Marines to open the door, their cart going squeak, squeak as they pushed it out into the hall. She followed them, only looking over her shoulder long enough to say, “And don’t come back.”

16
    Kaliningrad, Russia: Sunday 25 October
6:10 P.M. local time
    Stefan forced himself to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. Each step had become an act of will, every mile a penance of pain. At first the salt-stiffened trousers chafing his inner thighs had been an inconvenience. Then soreness turned to raw agony. By now, he was forced to admit that if he didn’t find clean clothes somewhere, he was never going to make it back to Yasnaya Polyana.
    He drew up at the top of a small rise, his breath ragged with pain. There was a cold wind blowing from the north, and he shifted into the shelter of a sturdy pine, his eyes narrowing as he studied the hamlet that straddled a stream at the edge of the wood below.
    He could see a