Rift Zone

  RIFT ZONE

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

  RIFT ZONE

  Copyright © 2004 by Raelynn Hillhouse

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  This book is printed on acid-free paper.

  A Forge Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor.com

  Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hillhouse, Raelynn.

  Rift zone / Raelynn Hillhouse.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  “A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

  ISBN 0-765-31013-9

  EAN 978-0765-31013-2

  1. Smugglers—Fiction. 2. Communists—Fiction. 3. Birthfathers—Fiction. 4. Europe, Eastern—Fiction. 5. Missing persons—Fiction. 6. Berlin (Germany)—Fiction. 7. Fathers and daughters—Fiction. 8. Americans—Europe, Eastern—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3608.I44R57 2004

  813’.6—dc22

  2003071102

  First Edition: August 2004

  Printed in the United States of America

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To my mother, Donna Hillhouse, who refused to allow me to travel

  alone to the Soviet Union—so she went with me.

  And to my father, Charles Hillhouse,

  who was smart enough to stay home.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Friends, family and colleagues have given of themselves beyond my wildest imagination and have made this novel take on dimensions that I could never have reached alone. I have them to thank for the strengths of this book.

  Jim Froneberger, Lt. Cmdr. USN ret., my favorite bomb maker and storyteller, taught me more than I should ever know about explosives. Former Pan Am pilot, Bill “Flyboy” North once strayed into Soviet airspace as well as into my email box. Soviet MIGs didn’t catch him, but I was lucky enough to snag him as a consultant, e-pen pal and virtual flying instructor. My dear friend, co-worker and fellow black operative, Michael Lukson, was a constant source of moral as well as tech support. Mike once told me that “real programmers don’t do Web sites.” Maybe not. But it’s a truly special friend who learns two new computer languages to give someone such a phenomenal Web site as www.InternationalThrillers.com.

  Gayle Lynds’ steadfast confidence in my work gave me the assurance to take some particularly bold steps—and thanks to her wise counsel, they turned out to be just the right ones. Without her generous support, this novel would never have been published. Gayle is rightfully the godmother of this book. My agent, Bob Diforio, is a consummate professional and a delight to work with. He has been simply awesome. Thanks to Bob’s tireless efforts, my first novel was not only published, but published well.

  Sarah Wang’s insightful critique, undying enthusiasm and perseverance through various stages of the manuscript have been invaluable. Former Finnair Moscow bureau chief and the only person I know who has ever smuggled himself out of the Soviet Union and back into it again on the same weekend, Timo Valtonen provided key Soviet airport and border details. I am also grateful to Captain Jerold Ogami-Van Camp of Aloha Airlines for letting me crawl around the floor of his flight deck. Many others contributed to the success of the project, including Maryann Palumbo, Daniel Siguara, Florence Jacobson, Jacqueline Deval and Danny Baror.

  My warmest thanks go to Brian Callaghan for believing in me and championing the book. The staff at Tor, including Eric Raab, Nicole Kalian, Elena Stokes, Linda Quinton, Kathleen Fogarty and others behind the scenes, has done truly exceptional work. I am particularly in debt to Tom Doherty for once again challenging conventional wisdom in publishing—this time taking a chance on a Cold War thriller, some fifteen years after John le Carré declared them dead.

  My family sacrificed countless evenings and weekends while I was absorbed with this project. I’ve often joked that I did it despite everyone—dogs barking, the Food Network blaring, chores demanding—but I could only follow my dream because they are my dream. My deepest love and gratitude belong to Cynthia Curatalo and my three furry muses, LynnDy, Jordan and Lily.

  PROLOGUE

  VNUKOVO AIRPORT, MOSCOW, USSR

  1961

  A Soviet border guard rummaged through the mother’s battered suitcase, flinging clothes onto the floor of the customs hall while the toddler clutched her bear.

  “We know.” The official tapped the luggage. “Next time.”

  The mother plopped her two hundred pounds of hillbilly dignity onto the stone tiles and gathered their belongings as if sorting laundry on their front porch in Arkansas. The child studied a portrait of Khrushchev hanging on the beaten plaster wall and trembled until she noticed the bald man in the picture was smiling at her. She shyly smiled back and wondered if her daddy had looked like him.

  Late that night, in a cemetery on the outskirts of the city, the girl and her mother met God’s chosen and squeezed into an abandoned mausoleum for a secret meeting. “Come on, sweet pea,” the mother said, “Jesus needs Teddy now.” She yanked the animal from the child and plunged a dagger into the bear, sacrificing it to her god. Like entrails from a freshly butchered hog, stuffing burst from its belly. The believers shouted praises as she sank her hand into the gut, pulled out a New Testament and raised it toward the heavens.

  No one noticed the terror in the little girl’s eyes.

  When the girl was old enough to understand that the Soviet state feared her mother, she realized she and the communists would share a lifelong bond.

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  OLD JEWISH QUARTER, EAST BERLIN

  TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 1989

  The face of Stalin smirked at her from the bottom of a porcelain soup tureen as she bargained with an aging East German couple in the musty storage room of the Patschkes’ millinery shop. A dozen mannequins peered from the shadows like faceless skinheads. She picked up a teacup by its awkward hammer-and-sickle–shaped handle. Before the communists, Dresden’s master craftsmen had designed the world’s finest china for European imperial courts. She cradled the cup and touched their humiliation. But it was a vintage piece, a testament to the pain of modern Germany and extremely marketable.

  And Faith Whitney wanted it.

  “You’re a good customer, Frau Professor, so we’ll make you a special offer. One thousand West mark. It’s a complete service, immaculate condition, genuine Meissen.” Herr Patschke’s tiny round glasses slid to a stop on the hook of his nose.

  Faith had only twenty-three minutes until a rendezvous, but reminded herself of Hakan’s rule of negotiations: Slow business is good business. The Patschkes admired efficiency almost as much as she did, so she forced herself to lean back in the wobbly chair and sip gritty East German coffee.

  “Only two sets were commissioned for Marshal Stalin’s seventieth birthday.” Frau Patschke took the teacup from Faith and wiped her fingerprints from it. “It is pristine.”

  “And this is the only complete set in existence. One night at his dacha, Stalin hurled the other at his Politburo,” Herr Patschke said without a smile and then leaned over and whispered, “Rumor has it this marked the beginning of more purges.”

  Herr Patschke nodded to his wife, his double chin swelling like a pigeon puffing its neck. Frau Patschke pulled a skeleton key from the pocket of her housedress and waddled to a chest. She removed a mahogany box and set it on the table. An eagle was carved into the lid; the bird of prey’s talons clutched a swastika. Frau Patschke flicked open the gold latch. Inside the si
lk-lined box, crystal goblets sparkled even in the light of the single bare bulb.

  A sudden chill was all Faith needed to authenticate the Nazi stemware as she picked one up with a tissue. A frosted engraving was identical to the emblem on the box. She hated contaminating her apartment with fascist trash, but this set merited sealed bids. “As usual, your taste is exquisite, but I’m in Leipzig soon and I have luck finding merchandise there more within my budget. If there’s nothing more, I’ll have to excuse myself.” She spoke in unaccented German and stood, compelling herself to look away.

  “Bohemian crystal, very lovely, very special. They were a gift to the Führer for the liberation of the Czech lands.” Frau Patschke held a goblet in front of Faith’s face and flicked her middle finger against it.

  Nothing with a swastika should ring so clear.

  “Tell you what. I’ll give you one thousand for both the plates and the glasses.”

  The Patschkes squinted at each other while Faith rummaged through her oversized purse. She removed a camera and stole a glance at her watch.

  Frau Patschke raised an eyebrow. “Is that one of those American models that make the instant photos?” Herr Patschke slipped his arm around his wife’s sizeable waist, pressed his cheek against hers and grinned.

  “A real Polaroid.” Faith snapped the picture and the camera spit out the photo.

  The Patschkes huddled together spellbound as the image materialized. He pointed to the snapshot. “Look, Hilda! Amazing. Simply amazing. Do you realize the private photos we could make with this?”

  “Fritz!”

  “If you include this camera—” Herr Patschke began.

  “And plenty of film,” Frau Patschke said.

  “Ja, ja. Both for one thousand, five hundred West,” Herr Patschke said.

  Faith pursed her lips. “One thousand, three hundred.”

  “Wonderful.” Herr Patschke shook her hand and snatched the Polaroid. “Smile, Liebchen.”

  “I’d like you to use some special packing materials. Plus I need this to fit into three separate packages so it seems like I’ve got books. Bubble wrap, cardboard, then standard pink paper on the outside would be best.” Faith placed a roll of imported bubble wrap onto the table.

  Frau Patschke divided the Stalin service into two parcels while Herr Patschke measured a length of the coarse pink paper used in East German bookstores, but it ran out before he could finish the Nazi crystal. Frau Patschke handed him some newsprint with line drawings of vacuum tubes and slogans praising East German scientific advancements.

  “Don’t you have any more of the pink? I was counting on it.” Faith fidgeted in her seat.

  “I’m sorry. We are short right now.”

  Herr Patschke bound the two pink-wrapped boxes together and loaded all three onto a suitcase trolley Faith had brought with her. Like a child playing with a retractable tape measure, Herr Patschke stretched the bungee strap as far as he could, let go of it and then snickered as it snapped back.

  He insisted on helping Faith with the packages. He pulled the cart through the labyrinth of their storerooms and removed the CLOSED sign from the front window. He paused with his hand on the doorknob and glanced back over his shoulder. “She didn’t want me to say anything, but I believe you should know. Two men stopped by last week and inquired after you. They had no interest in what you buy—only in how you move things. Naturally, we told them nothing. Be cautious, Frau Doktor.”

  Privately run shops with brightly painted façades dotted the streets of the old Jewish quarter. A hunched woman with church-lady blue hair examined books in a display window of a Christian bookstore, one of the handful tolerated by the state. Her head moved as she watched Faith’s reflection in the plate-glass window. Faith hurried away, invigorated by the sense of threat that permeated East Berlin like a foggy mist. Her blouse was damp from sweat and nerves.

  She waited alongside two East German punks staring at the red pedestrian light and ignoring the empty street. Their purple hair stood straight up from their heads as though the hair itself were trying to escape their gaunt bodies. When she stepped from the sidewalk before the light turned green, they scowled at her. Not wanting to call attention to herself, she stepped back up and reassured herself she had three minutes before the window closed.

  She dragged the heavy cart along the irregular cobblestones. The packages shifted off-center as it bounced along, making it difficult to maneuver, but she had no time to stop. She rushed past a long line of parked cars where a dirty Mercedes with red diplomatic plates stuck out among the tiny fiber-glass Trabants.

  One minute. Faith was watching the broken sidewalk ahead when she noticed a pair of legs. On cue, she stumbled. An African man tried to catch her, but she fell, raking her hand across the rough stones. She intentionally tipped the cart until the packages tumbled to the ground.

  The man reached under her arm to steady her. The diamonds in his gold rings glistened. “So sorry, sister,” he said in African-accented English. “You all right?”

  “No major damage. Bruises add character.”

  “Let me have a look.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” She pulled her hand back. It burned so badly she hoped the muscle wasn’t exposed, but only three scrapes crossed her palm.

  In the commotion, another black man had climbed from the backseat of the Mercedes and stacked three pink packages back onto her cart.

  “Hey, careful with those. They’re extremely fragile.”

  “No worry. I do the job right.” He winked at her.

  Faith rolled her eyes.

  Faith dashed into the Ministry of Education, worried her tardiness had blown her lunch engagement. She almost had the Assistant Minister of Education sold on sponsoring her as a visiting professor at Berlin’s Humboldt University. The professorship came with a coveted multiple-entry visa that would allow her free passage between Berlins and throughout the GDR. Free of the restrictions of one-day visas that confined her within city limits, the entire country would be hers to plunder at will. She had worked on a scheme for months, creating a fictitious Ozark University and even getting it listed in a college guide. The time had now come to close the deal before Neumann upped his price or talked too much.

  The porter called Neumann on the house phone and within a few minutes he arrived to escort her inside. The last time she saw him, Neumann had been balding. Now he sported a mane of jet-black hair that looked as if a mangy animal were humping his head. The way it was sewn gave it an almost avian quality she couldn’t quite pin down. She couldn’t keep her eyes off it as she tried to figure out the species.

  Their footsteps echoed in the corridor as they passed red bulletin boards filled with the latest Party directives. Faith expected an elaborate dining hall for the government elite, but the canteen was humid and cramped. Neumann handed her a metal tray dripping with water and they waited in line. Steam gusted from the kitchen, depositing a sheen of grease on Faith’s favorite silk blazer. Definitely a schnitzel day.

  He led her to a corner table away from the other patrons where an orange salt and pepper set complemented the brown synthetic tablecloth. She cringed at the sight of reusable plastic toothpicks.

  Neumann straightened the aluminum fork. “I’m impressed that you speak Russian, Frau Professor. Seldom for an American.”

  “How do you know I speak Russian?” Faith sought eye contact, but he looked away.

  “Cabbage is tasty today,” he said, his mouth full of red kraut.

  “That’s nice, but how do you know about my Russian?”

  “I assumed. You’re a professor and . . .”

  “And I looked the type.”

  “Yes, yes. You do look brilliant. You’re probably interested in Gorbachev’s reforms and why our government has been so resistant to them. Wait until the old man Honecker’s gone and you’ll see change. I can introduce you to some others who feel this way, Party members who talk about social—” He interrupted himself and shielded his lips with
his hand and whispered, “democracy.”

  She glanced at the oval Party pin on his lapel. That particular model dated his membership to the Stalinist period. Faith didn’t believe in born-again anything, particularly communists and Nazis. “Herr Neumann, your dissidents don’t interest me any more than your Party does. It’s your household arts that intrigue me, which brings me to the topic of the professorship.” She rustled through her purse without looking down and handed him a small paper bag under the table. Neumann peeped inside and then shoved it into his vinyl briefcase.

  “Sponsor me for the visa and I’ll be able to bring over fruit like that. It’s almost kiwi season and I bet you’d love them. They taste a lot like strawberries, only better.”

  “Strawberries are my favorite.”

  The way he eyed Faith as if she were a juicy berry herself made her want to pummel him with rotten fruit, but she smiled instead. “If I get a chance, I’ll bring you some.”

  “Only once is a tease.”

  “With the visa I could drop by every now and then with a few vegetables as a gesture of my gratitude for pushing the paperwork through within the week.”

  “You do know we have plenty of apples, onions, potatoes. And do not bring cabbage—we need no more cabbage here.” He picked up the bowl and slurped lentil soup.

  “So am I going to be a visiting art professor or not?”

  “The outlook’s improving.”

  “But I see we’re not there yet. Did you get a chance to look over the Ozark U. literature I gave you last time?”

  “Such a clean campus. I’d love to visit there sometime—maybe for a semester.”

  “And we’d love to have you. If this year goes well for me, I’m sure we can work something out. So what is the status of my visa?”

  “Undecided, but there is one small thing. Our computer is broken. It’s a Western model and no one here can repair it. You could transport it to the West for service. It would speed our work along. We can be of mutual assistance to one another.”