All’s fair in love and war.

The water-splattered store window in front of Walter Peake held richly tooled leather desk sets and overweight filigreed pens, the kind given as retirement gifts but rarely used. The reflected image of the rain blown cobblestones behind him was empty. The sodden wind measured a few degrees above zero Celsius. His legs, hands and head were already soaked and every gust of wind drove wet chill through the wool to skin.

He’d arrived well within the meeting procedure of five minutes before and after the arranged time. A two hour train ride, an U-Bahn ride, a short walk, another U-Bahn hop and a 10 minute walk.… Read the rest