Read A Spy in Berlin: The Professional Friend Preview Page 19
Back from the city with supplies, Popov and Mario filled the shelves behind the hot plate with wormy apples, potatoes, dark bread, vodka, mineral water, and assorted tin cans. For a handful of rubles they had also snagged a real prize from the battered cardboard suitcase of an old Novgorod grandmother at the main train station…a black-market Siberian bear-paw salami.
“Nice.” Bogosian said, admiring the salami. He waved his fork at the canned spaghetti à la Bolognese warming on the hot plate.
Popov made a face. He picked up Filshin’s new disposable cell phone. “You waste our money on new phone? You have one. Pawlowski has one. Caspar can steal one anytime. Why you waste our money on this cheap Soviet shit?” He flung it across the room.
“The other mobiles have GPS,” Filshin said. “We turn them on and boom, the Americans give the longitude and latitude to Interpol, and the Russian Militsiya comes knocking.”
“How do you know they don’t have GPS in that phone?” Popov asked.
“I’m an engineer. I looked.”
“Okay, okay,” Popov acquiesced.
Filshin understood his anger as he looked at the shriveled potatoes. How many times had he heard Natasha say, you have to feed your troops well, if you want a happy family. He opened his wallet and handed Popov euros from their rapidly dwindling supply to buy a real dinner.
While Popov and Mario returned to the city, Filshin, Bogosian, Caspar, and new hire, Bashir, the Ossetian kid they found living in the basement, secured the abandoned basement restaurant they were using to lock up Pawlowski.
Pawlowski sat tied to a captain’s chair in the middle of the room. One eye was swollen shut. The other eye scanned them like a bird of prey. Filshin would have to be careful when he proposed his plan.
Bogosian shoved a usable table across the uneven stone floor to Pawlowski and ordered Caspar and Bashir to stack the broken tables and chairs into a pile in front of the only other door. The lock was rusted shut, but a pile of wood would make doubly sure no one would get in or out without passing through the gang’s makeshift kitchen.
Filshin was drawn to the giant wine barrels that reached almost to the brick ceiling arching overhead. Their wooden lids were carved with scenes from the old Hanseatic League of Cities. Ships and markets in old city squares. Fascinating how this depiction of 1,000 years of Baltic history could escape being vaporized by both the 1944 RAF bombing run and the Soviet demolition. He ran his fingers over a three-dimensional medieval sailing ship and blew away the dust from the ship’s rigging and the faces of the tiny sailors.
A sharp pain struck his calf, and a chair leg clattered to the floor and skittered across the stones.
“Hey,” Bogosian yelled. “Quit daydreaming and help me carry out this table and some chairs. The others are back with dinner.”