The Heist

at the three men as they dashed across Unter den Linden. The van was crossing the bridge toward them. It would park at the curb in front of the flea market to block any chance of Kate and Nick making a retreat. The Audi made a sharp U-turn on Unter den Linden and sped away, probably to the other end of the flea market to cut them off.
    “Sure,” Kate said, and the two of them ambled into the flea market as if they didn’t have a care in the world.
    “Thanks. I’ll see you at the Stony Peak Lodge in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in two days.”
    She stopped to browse at a booth selling vintage jewelry. “If you don’t show up, I’ll find you.”
    “I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Nick said.
    Nick disappeared into the crowd and Kate picked up a necklace, held it to her throat, and looked at her reflection in a mirror hanging from one of the booth posts. She wasn’t looking at herself, of course, but at the three men hurrying her way. She sized them up and decided on a direct approach. She put the necklace down, stepped into the center of the path, and turned to face the three men, cutting them off. She named them Moe, Larry, and Curly. They were all doing their best to look mean.
    “I don’t like being followed,” she said. “So I’d appreciate it if you’d turn around and go back where you came from.”
    Moe shared a look with Larry and then said something to Curly in German. She didn’t speak the language, but from his gestures she figured he’d said something along the lines of “You grab the girl, we’ll take care of Fox.”
    When Moe moved to pass her, she kicked him in the groin, and as he bent over in pain, she elbowed him in the back of the neck, knocking him out and putting him on the ground.
    Larry took a swing at her that he telegraphed so early, and so obviously, he might as well have sent his intentions to her in a postcard three weeks ago. She calmly ducked under the swing, hammered him in the stomach with her fist, then kneed him in the face as he bent over, smashing his nose like a tomato and putting him on the ground beside Moe.
    The whole skirmish was over in less than thirty seconds, and Kate was feeling good about herself. Okay, maybe she wasn’t so great with the finer points of landing a boyfriend, but she could dropkick a two-hundred-pound man without breaking a sweat.
    People were backing away from her, giving her plenty of room. She looked at Curly, who appeared dumbfounded, as if animmutable law of nature had just been broken. The sun rises in the morning and sets at night, two plus two equals four, and women are supposed to be helpless.
    “I know this didn’t work out the way you planned,” she said to Curly, “but I’m okay with how it went down. I’ve got nothing against you. We’re cool. You can walk away from this and take your friends with you.”
    Even if he didn’t understand English, she hoped that the tone of her voice, her body language, and the two guys on the ground would get the point across. But Curly decided to up the stakes, even with witnesses all around. He pulled a knife and rushed at her.
    She waited until the last possible second, turned sideways, grabbed his knife hand, and held it as he passed, yanking his arm behind him and using his own weight and forward momentum to dislocate his shoulder with an audible crack. He yelped in agony and went to the ground. Kate looked back toward Unter den Linden and saw the van speeding off. Scared away by the police sirens one street over, she thought. She hurried in the direction of Museum Island, the people around her giving her a wide berth. She didn’t see the Audi at the next street. She hoped that was because he’d gotten scared off, too, and not because he’d managed to capture Nick. The irony of that thought made her smile. She’d never rooted for Nick Fox to escape before.
    A flash of something cream-colored caught her eye, and she realized it was Nick’s shirt hanging on a rack in a booth selling vintage clothes. She did a 360 degree scan of the area and spotted Nick on a tour boat moving down the Spree canal. He was standing at the railing wearing a blue watch cap, sunglasses, and a gray East German army shirt with double-buttoned breast pockets andelastic bands at the sides of the waist. He gave her a little nod and Kate nodded back.
    Two green Polizei patrol cars pulled up on Unter den Linden and people pointed in Kate’s direction, so she made a quick exit down a side street and