The Death Trust Read Online Free PDF Page A

these old clunkers, I could have been scoping any air force base anywhere in the world. There was nothing in the least unique about it, nothing particularly “German” about the place, and certainly there were no cheery “Welcome to Deutschland!” banners strung up anywhere. And, thankfully, there didn’t appear to be any tanks running around getting shot at or otherwise.
    Suspended in the air over the control tower were the arches of two enormous, crisply defined rainbows, glowing in the morning light. They served as the welcoming committee until a Humvee squealed to a stop nearby. The driver’s door swung open and a woman pushed herself out from behind the steering wheel. “Special Agent Cooper? Special Agent Masters,” she said over the ambient jet noise. Masters saluted and I returned it. “How was your flight?”
    “Great,” I said.
    “Great,” she replied. I had the impression I could have said, “Like sticking my head in a bucket of octopus shit” and she still would’ve said great.
    “I’ll take you to your quarters. I tried to find you accommodation on the base but couldn’t. It’s all booked solid. I thought it would be best if you were in the thick of things.” She shrugged. “You got luggage?”
    I reached back into the C-21 and pulled out my bag. It wasn’t a big bag and there wasn’t much in it.
    “I hope you’ve got thermals in there,” Masters observed. “It gets pretty cold around here.”
    So, I’d just met the woman and already she was thinking about my underwear. Once upon a time I would have grabbed that thought and run with it, but my ego had taken a pounding during the separation and divorce, and so I let it go without comment. Masters was nothing like I imagined her, at least to look at. That she wasn’t a clone of Gruyere was a relief, given we’d be spending a fair bit of time together on this investigation. She was tall, around five eleven, with chocolate-colored hair pulled back in a regulation bun. With heels, we’d be eyeball to eyeball. Hers, by the way, were unusual—a smoky green at the outer edges and a gold-flecked blue that deepened in color around the pupil. They were extraordinary eyes, the kind you see in mascara ads in women’s magazines. And no doubt Masters knew it. Being a cop, I’m pretty good at guessing, but I had no idea what her weight was because she was wearing a loose-fitting, Army Combat Uniform with a bulky green jacket over the top that was maybe a size or two too big. She had good cheekbones, and a few small freckles scattered across the bridge of her small nose. The freckles together with her accent pegged her as Californian. She had an attractive face, except that it was completely devoid of pleasure or happiness. At least, to be seeing me. And if I was imagining the bored hostility aimed right at me, then maybe, in words Brenda might have used, I really did need to do something about reempowering my self-esteem.
    “Lieutenant General Wolfgang von Koeppen is a neat freak. You might like to take a shower and use a razor before you meet with him,” she said bluntly.
    “Yeah, thanks.” While I didn’t know Masters, I’d seen the disapproval on her face plenty of times before. It was the “you look like shit” expression. I tried not to let it affect our relationship right off the bat.
    “Your meeting has been rescheduled for oh-nine-fifteen. Once I take you to your quarters, you’ll have half an hour to freshen up. The general is anxious to meet with you.”
    Masters maneuvered the Humvee through a set of low office buildings and turned toward a nest of houses that could have been designed by an unimaginative child—a door with a window on either side, and a simple gable roof over the top. The color scheme was uniformly gray. The Ritz-Carlton it wasn’t.
    “That’s the on-base accommodation I couldn’t get you into,” she said.
    “My luck’s improving, then,” I replied.
    We reached an intersection and Masters turned