The Mole

Stuttgart, 1985. From where I stood, the whole world looked grey. Outside the window, the sky was dreary overhead, fading into a distant smudge of buildings, each sending their own miasma up from innumerable chimneys. Inside the window was even worse. Cement walls peeling to reveal even older cement; the layers perfectly alike except for their unique, cigarette-induced discoloration. Like teeth, rotting away only to be replaced by another row, shark like.

The temperature was grey too. I was just cold enough to be uncomfortable, yet not cold enough to merit wearing thick stockings or a heavier dress. I held the attaché case close. Bright blue, it alone represented an escape to another world where sun and light reigned supreme.

I was waiting for someone to come and take it from me. Take it deeper into this web of treacherous, tenuous connections. The weight of regime and conspiracy hung in the air. Typewriters clicked in the background as someone lit up, kicked back in their leather chair, and puffed pensively into the air.

A pair walked up to me, a plain man with a tall, thin, severe older woman. They could have been mother and son, and would have been unhappy about it. There was a pause as they got near, then they closed in. I left the case on a chair by the window, turned and walked to a nearby couch. I sat. A gunshot rang out. It seemed dull in the office air, not sharp like the ones I remembered from training. I instinctively reached for the pistol concealed in my purse, but my arm wouldn’t move. 

I looked down and there was blood darkening my blouse, streaming along my arm and dripping onto the orange fabric of the couch. I keeled forward. From the floor I saw the couple running, gun still drawn in the man’s hand, towards the door. The color slowly drained from my vision, and I had the strangest sensation of moving backwards in time, flying back to the era of black and white film noir.