Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Ninety-Nine
16th July 1978
Falkensee, Brandenburg
Admittedly, it was a nice neighborhood. Mostly a bedroom community with people commuting into Berlin. There was one exception though and that was the reason why Ed had decided to ruin her day by insisting that they meet in a park near the apartment she shared with the head of the nearby BND Academy and her young son. Asia Lawniczak, also known as Lady Winter, the Mistress of the Keys. She was a close advisor to the German Kaiser and was considered the keeper of all the great secrets of the Realm as it were. Ed didn’t care about her living openly as a Lesbian, that was not in any way germane to why he was here.
“Sven Werth tried to warn me about situations like these” Ed said as soon as Asia sat down on the bench next to him. “I didn’t understand what he was getting at.”
A look of revulsion crossed Asia’s face. She clearly knew who Sven Werth was and the role he had played the day before with the attempted arrest and suicide of Friedhelm Busse. While it would have been impossible for her to have made things play out the way they had, it had all worked out rather well for her.
“What do you want Agent O’Neill?” Asia asked.
“The truth” Ed replied as he pulled a copy of the front page of the Boston Globe from a couple weeks earlier out of the pocket of his coat. “Know anything about the headline?”
Asia’s face became unreadable. The headline was about how Kelsey Stafford, a retired Deputy Director of the FBI and the former Head of the Boston Field Office had been brutally killed in his house sometime during the 4th of July weekend.
“While the FBI and local Police were chasing Tatiana von Mischner-Blackwood around Boston this happened” Ed said, “The man who put you in Danvers State Hospital, apparently electrocuted until his heart gave out. Strangely in a case this messy, not one bit of physical evidence was left behind so whoever did it knew exactly what they were doing.”
Ed watched Asia’s face, with the exception of when he mentioned Danvers he got no reaction. He understood that what had happened in that place had left her prematurely grey.
“Everything that has happened over the last few years” Ed continued, “None of it making sense because everyone was thinking in terms of spy versus spy. Once I realized that it was all about revenge, suddenly it all made sense.”
Asia said nothing.
“The BND operation in America, the same people who left you swinging in the wind, being electrocuted and nearly getting lobotomized, they all got exposed because of leaks to the CIA” Ed said, “If I look into what happened to the members of the Boston Police and the Hospital Staff at Danvers, what am I going to find?”
“That is quite an interesting theory Mr. O’Neill” Asia replied.
“I am not through” Ed said, “The one thing that didn’t make sense is what happened to Greyson. He was going to bust Tatiana von Mischner-Blackwood and Margret Anne Morgan for Tax and Immigration Fraud, so you needed him not only out of the picture but completely discredited. How better than to have him thrown into a mental hospital. You certainly know first-hand how that looks. Having Tatiana get busted in Ireland would have blown up your entire plan, you trained her yourself, so you knew what she was capable of. Having her never get back to Boston to provide a nice distraction…”
Ed just shrugged.
“Enough” Asia said sharply, “Last I looked, there are men in Berlin busy crowing about how they finally caught the mole they have been looking for. Notice that I had nothing to do with that?”
“Catching the mole was your job” Ed said, “And you did exactly that, serving one up neatly gift wrapped. Your patsy even had the decency to off himself before you had to do it for him. What was the plan, having him being found hung in his cell last night?”
Asia didn’t answer.
Of course, Ed knew that she would never see the inside of a Courtroom. Too many powerful men on both sides of the Atlantic would have egg on their face if the full truth ever came to light. None of this would have happened if Kelsey Stafford had not played cute and thrown had her thrown into Danvers. Would justice actually be served by putting someone like Asia in prison? It was noticeable that throughout this entire conversation she had not confirmed anything that Ed had told her. Until she did that, or he found that she had slipped up in some other manner it was all just speculation and conjecture on his part. He knew in his bones that she was guilty, but proving it was an entirely different matter.
“At the end of the day Miss Lawniczak we have to live with ourselves” Ed said, “I would suggest that you never set foot in the United States again.”
“I have no desire to ever go back to that wretched country” Asia said as she got up. “Have a good day Agent O’Neal.”
Ed supposed that went about as well as it could have as he watched Asia walk away. Supposedly, Sven Werth had told Heinz Kissinger that no one was above the Law and threatened to arrest him making Werth the hero of the hour. The Chancellor was currently an unpopular figure who had been considered to be on his way out anyway. This incident had sped up the process of Kissinger being forced to resign, so now Germany was about to have a General Election. If by then Ed was in a position to ignore all of it, then he would be perfectly happy.
being mentioned, is there? Speaking of the Aussie band, Will we see a cameo form the brothers Young?
