Tidal Rage

a safe house.
The house and the six-foot-high wall safe was a concern; it was only known to him and two other people. They were his two issues, his concern. Once they knew of his position, his vulnerability, who was to say they would not take the money and disappear? For now, they would be too frightened to move against him, but it would not take long before news got out about his predicament.
It was as clear as the Aegean Sea to Werner he would be serving some time in police and prison custody. Eventually, he knew he could ride the surf; his contacts would put pressure on those in power, or one of his henchmen would get to a juror. But for now, he was still some time away from freedom, perhaps years.
Werner was all consumed by the thoughts that while on the outside, no one dared to undermine him. But when Werner’s cronies heard of his injuries and incarceration, well, they may think he was no longer a credible force. He needed to address this situation, and he needed to sort it out now. He needed to secure the money, for money could buy power, and he was going to need that when he got out, broken man or not.
His first port of call would be his political contact; she was more a hidden partner, as she had profited by more than ten million dollars from their partnership. It was now time she started to earn her keep, no matter how high her status.
Nurse Hessler walked two hundred metres past the tall stone buildings with black-topped Germanic roofs to the phone booth. It was just outside the large, glassed swimming hall complex. He called the number Werner had written down.
“I’m in the hospital in Bad Reichenhall, Herr Werner is injured but not terminal. Get Attorney Von-Baer to visit me and see what you can do to alleviate this situation,” Hessler repeated the message as instructed.
“Do you know who I am?” the strong female Germanic voice inquired of Nurse Hessler.
“Nein,” he responded.
“Destroy the number you have, immediately. Never repeat the number or this conversation if you would like to keep breathing the wonderful fresh air down there,” she demanded.
Nurse Hessler continued, “Yah, I will destroy the number, but Herr Werner said I would be paid ten thousand euros for my trouble.”
“And so you shall. In two days, travel to Munich and go to the English Garden. You will be met there at 6 pm. We don’t need your name, for your security of course, but we do need to know what you look like so we can pay you,” the female said.
Evidently Hessler thought if he went in his nurse uniform, he would stand out sufficiently to be noticed, and that is exactly what he told her he would do.
Delegate Frau Uebering replaced the phone.
“Damn Werner, giving out my number! He knows better than that,” she muttered to herself.
Frau Uebering had also been brought up in the old East Germany and had been recruited as an informant by Werner. She was a full member of the Communist party and a junior member of the East German Government.
She would get and relay information to Werner. The information varied from petty to serious, any information; who was screwing whom, was anyone spending more than they could afford, any homosexuals, lesbians, whoremongers or pedophiles; any information, obviously for a price. Sometimes money, sometimes power.
Had the East German government survived another year, Frau Uebering may have become too powerful and in an elevated position for her to ever be considered for a post in the Bundestag, the unified government following the fall of the Berlin Wall.
It was not that Werner had a stranglehold over Delegate Frau Uebering, which he had; it was her need for a constant flow of money that kept her on the darker side of politics. Elections do not come cheap, and mediocre politicians never reached the top of their profession. Frau Uebering was determined to get to the top of hers.
Communism was a means to an end for her. She was and always had been a socialist; that of the Nazi kind. When she one day became chancellor, she would use the European Union as a means of controlling immigration and the dilution of the Aryan gene pool. For now, she was a delegate, a woman of power, a woman who would be listened to. She reckoned she was ten years away from the top job.
Frau Uebering took out a prepaid, throw-away mobile phone and rang Kurt Bauer, who was another ex-Stasi agent and now freelanced as a killer for hire. Both she and Bauer were based in Berlin. Frau Uebering lived on Unter den Linden, while Bauer lived a short distance away near the historic Alexander Platz.
“We have a rat, meet me in two hours at the Zoological Gardens, outside the reptile house,” Frau Uebering ordered Kurt Bauer.
She was comfortable there at the Gardens, as there were areas in the zoo where they could have complete privacy, out of sight and earshot of any member of the public or security services.
The phone call from the nurse did not take her by surprise. Through the Berlin grapevine, she quickly learned that Werner had been involved in a shoot-out and had been taken to the hospital. For her to have pressed the matter further could have raised questions as to her interest. She now knew his location and understood what was required.
In the Zoological Gardens, Kurt Bauer had listened intently and taken the orders from the delegate. Both Werner and the delegate knew that they had a rat in their house, someone who had intimate knowledge of the transference of the counterfeit and actual dollars. Only two other persons outside of Werner and the delegate had sufficient information that would have led to the compromising of their