Suddenly it all faded as Osborn was hit by the stark and overwhelming thought that McVey might not be able to pull it off. That as good as he was, maybe this time he was in over his head and that Scholl would get the upper hand as Honig had suggested. What then?
The question was no question at all because Osborn knew the answer. Every inch he had gained, as close as he had finally come, it would all blow up in his face. And with it would go every ounce of hope he ever had in his life. Because from that moment on no one from the outside world would ever get that close to Erwin Scholl again.
“Excuse me,” he said abruptly. Getting to his feet, he brushed past Remmer and went into the room he was sharing with Noble and stood there in the dark. He could hear their voices filtering in from the other room. They were talking as they had before. It made no difference if he was there or not. And tomorrow it would be the same when, warrant in hand, they would walk out the door to visit Scholl, leaving him behind in the hotel room, with only a BKA detective for company.
For no reason the room suddenly felt unbearably close and claustrophobic. Going into the bathroom, he switched on the light and looked for a glass. Seeing none, he cupped his hand and bent over and drank from the faucet. Then he held his wet hand to the back of his neck and felt its coolness. In the mirror he saw Noble enter the room, pick something off the dresser, then glance in at him before going back to the others.
Reaching to shut off the water, his eyes were drawn to his own image. The color was gone from his face and sweat had beaded up on his forehead and upper lip. He held out his hand and it was trembling. As he stood there, he became aware of the thing stirring inside him again and at almost the same time heard the sound of his own voice. It was so clear that for a moment he thought he’d actually spoken out loud.
“Scholl is here in Berlin, in a hotel across the park.”
Suddenly his entire body shuddered and he was certain he was going to faint. Then the feeling passed, and as it did one thing became unequivocally clear. This was something McVey was not going to steal from him, not after everything. Scholl was too close. Whatever it took, however he had to circumvent the men in the other room, he could not and would not live another twenty-four hours without knowing why his father had been murdered.
99
* * *
THE VIGNETTE of three men talking in a hotel room could be interesting or dull, especially when seen from a darkened room at an angle across from them and photographed in close-up by a motor drive camera using a telephoto lens.
The camera was abruptly discarded in favor of binoculars as a fourth man emerged from a back room, pulling on a suit coat. One of the initial three got up and went to him. There was a brief conversation, then one of the others picked up the telephone. A moment later he hung up and the first man started for the door. He was almost to it when he turned and said something to the man who had gone to him. The man hesitated, then he turned and went out of sight. When he came back he gave the first man something. Then the man opened the door and left.
Putting aside the binoculars, the attractive blonde with the dead software designer working toward rigor mortis in the elegant marble bathroom only feet away picked up a two-way radio. “Natalia,” she said.
“Lugo,” came the reply.
“Osborn just left.”
Osborn was certain McVey would never have given him the automatic, or even let him out of the room, if he’d known what he meant to do. He’d simply said that he had nothing to contribute to the police business, that he was feeling a little woozy and claustrophobic, and wanted to go for a walk to clear his head.
It was then five minutes to ten, and McVey, overly tired and with a great deal on his mind, had considered, then finally agreed. Asking Remmer to have one of the BKA detectives go with him, he’d warned him not to leave the complex and to be back by eleven.
Osborn hadn’t protested, just nodded and started for the door. It was then he’d turned and asked McVey for the pistol. It was a calculated move on Osborn’s part, but he knew McVey would have to seriously evaluate what had happened and realize, police protection or not, all Osborn was asking for was a little extra insurance. Still, it had been a long, uncomfortable moment before McVey relented and gave him Bernhard Oven’s Cz automatic.
Osborn hadn’t gone a dozen paces toward the elevator when he was met by BKA Inspector Johannes Schneider. Schneider was about thirty and tall, with a flat hump across the bridge of his nose that suggested it had been broken more than once.
“You want to get some air,” he said breezily in accented English. “Let’s got for it.”
Earlier, when they’d first settled in, Osborn had found a brochure that described the Europa-Center as a complex with more than a hundred shops, restaurants, cabarets and a casino. It was complete with diagrams marking venue locations and building entrances and exits.
Osborn smiled. “Have you ever been to Las Vegas, Inspector Schneider?” he asked.
“No, I haven’t.”
“I like to gamble a little,” Osborn said. “How is the casino here?”
“Spielbank Casino? Excellent and expensive.” Schneider grinned.
“Let’s go for it.” Osborn grinned back.
Taking the elevator down, they stopped at the hotel’s front desk while Osborn changed his remaining French francs into Deutschmarks, then he let Schneider lead the way to the casino.
Fifteen minutes later, Osborn asked the policeman to take over his hand at the baccarat table while he made a quick trip to the men’s room. Schneider saw him ask a security guard for directions and walk off.
Osborn crossed the casino floor and turned a corner, made sure Schneider hadn’t followed, then walked out. Stopping at a newsstand in the lobby, he bought a tourist map of the city, put it in his pocket and went out a side door, taking a left on Nurnbergerstrasse.
Across the street, Viktor Shevchenko saw him come out. Dressed in jeans and a dark sweater, he was standing on the sidewalk just out of the glare of a brightly lit Greek restaurant listening to heavy metal through the headset of ‘what appeared to be a Sony Walkman. Lifting his hand as if to stifle a cough, he spoke into it.
“Viktor.”
Lugo.” Von Holden’s voice crackled through Viktor’s headset.
“Osborn just came out alone. He’s crossing Budapesterstrasse toward the Tiergarten.”
Dodging traffic, Osborn crossed Budapesterstrasse to the far sidewalk and glanced back toward the Europa-Center. If Schneider was following, he couldn’t see him. Stepping back from the glare of the streetlights, he started .’off in the direction of the Berlin Zoo, then, sensing he was going in the wrong direction, turned back the way he had come. The pavement was covered with leaves made slick by a light drizzle and the air was cold enough for him to see his breath. Looking back, he saw a man in a raincoat and hat slowly walking a dog that wanted to sniff at every tree and lamppost. There was still no sign of Schneider. Picking up his pace, he walked a good two hundred yards farther before stopping under the lighted overhang of a parking structure, and opened the map.
It took several minutes before he found what he was looking for. Friedrichstrasse was on the far side of the Brandenburg Gate. By his estimate it was a ten-minute cab ride or a half hour walk through the Tiergarten. A taxi they could trace. Walking was better. Besides, it would give him time to think.
“Viktor?”
“Lugo,” Von Holden’s voice said.
“I have him. He’s walking east. Going into the Tiergarten.”
Von Holden was still in his office in the apartment on Sophie-Charlottenstrasse. He was on his feet talking into his two-way radio, unable to believe his good luck.
“Still alone?”
“Yes.” Viktor’s voice was crystal clear through the radio’s tiny speaker.
“The fool.”
“Instructions?”
“Follow him. I will be there in five minutes.”
100
* * *
NOBLE HUNG up and looked at McVey. “Still nothing from Cadoux. Nor is there an answer at his confidential number in Lyon.”
Disturbed and frustrated, McVey looked to Remmer, who was on his third cup of black coffee in the last forty minutes. They’d been over the guest list twenty times and, despite the handful of names Bad Godesberg still had been unable to trace, had found nothing more than they had the first time they went over it. Maybe somewhere among those missing people they’d find a key, maybe they wouldn’t. It was McVey’s sense they should be concentrating on what they had as opposed to what they didn’t, and he asked Remmer to see if they could get a more comprehensive breakdown on the guests that had already been identified. Maybe it wasn’t who the people were or what they did, maybe, like Klass and Halder, it had to do with their families or their backgrounds, something more titan was immediately apparent.
Perhaps they hadn’t had enough to go on to begin with, to make the process work and uncover the big rock with tile red CLUE on it they were after. Then again, maybe there was nothing here at all. It could be that Scholl was in Berlin legitimately and the whole Lybarger thing was nothing more than what it appeared: an innocent testimonial to a man who had been ill. But McVey wasn’t going to let it go until he knew for sure. And while they were waiting for more from Bad Godesberg, they went around again, this time coming back to Cadoux.
“Let’s take the Klass/Halder situation and point it at Cadoux.” McVey was sitting in a chair with his feet up on one of the twin beds. “Could he have had a father, brother, cousin, whatever—who might have been Nazis or Nazi sympathizers during the war?”
“Did you ever hear of Ajax?” Remmer asked.
Noble looked up. “Ajax was a network of French police who worked with the Resistance during the Occupation. After the war they discovered only five percent of its members actually resisted. Most of them were smuggling for the Vichy government.”
“Cadoux’s uncle was a judicial cop. A member of Ajax in Nice. After the war he was relieved of duty following a purge of Nazi collaborators,” Remmer said.
“What about his father, was he in Ajax too?”
“Cadoux’s father died the year after he was born.”
“You’re saying his uncle raised him,” McVey said, then sneezed.
“Correct.”
McVey stared off, then got up and walked across the room. “Is that what this is all about, Manny? Nazis? Is Scholl a Nazi? Is Lybarger?” Coming back, he picked the guest list from the bed. “Are all these wealthy, educated, prominent people—a new breed of German Nazi?”
Just then the light on the fax machine went on. There was a whirring sound and the paper rolled out. Remmer picked it off the machine and read it.
“There is no birth record for an Elton Lybarger in Essen in 1933 or bracketing years. They are checking further.” Remmer read on, then looked up. “Lybarger’s castle in Zurich.”
“What about it?”
“It’s owned by Erwin Scholl.”
Osborn had no idea what he was going to do when he got to the Grand Hotel Berlin. The thing with Albert Merriman in Paris had been different. He’d had time to plan, to think out a course of action while Jean Packard tracked Merriman down. The obvious question now, as he walked a lighted pathway that cut through the dark lawns and trees of Tiergarten, was threefold—how to get Scholl alone, how to make him talk, what to do afterward.
Imagining what a man in Scholl’s position must be like, it was safe to assume he would have an entourage of assistants and hangers-on, and at least one bodyguard, maybe more. That meant getting him alone would be extremely difficult, if not impossible.
That aside, assuming he did get him alone, what would make Scholl reveal what he wanted revealed? Say what he wanted him to say? Scholl, as Diedrich Honig had professed, with or without lawyers, would deny that he ever heard of Albert Merriman, Osborn’s father or any of the others. Succinylcholine might work, as it had on Merriman, but he had no allies in Berlin to help him get it. For an instant his mind went to Vera. How she was, where she was. Why any of this had to be. As quickly he put it away. He had to keep his concentration on Scholl. Nothing else.
They could see him ahead of them, maybe two hundred yards. He was still alone, walking on a path that, in a few moments, would take him to the edge of the park near Brandenburg Gate.
“How do you want to do it?” Viktor asked.
“I want to look him in the eyes,” Von Holden said.
Osborn glanced at his watch: 10:35.
Would Schneider still be hunting for him or would he have already reported him missing to Remmer? If he had, McVey would have alerted the Berlin police and he would have to be on the lookout for them as well. He had no passport and McVey might well let them throw him in jail just to keep him out of the way.
Abruptly the thought came that maybe that wasn’t so. And with it the notion that he could have been wrong about the other thing, too. He was as tired as the rest of them. Maybe his worry that McVey would leave him behind when they went after Scholl was just that. He’d sought out McVey’s help in the first place and come this far with him. Why was he turning his back on him now and trying to do everything alone? It was all coming in a rush. His emotions running away with him as they had for almost thirty years. He was too close to the end to let them ruin everything now. Didn’t he understand that? He’d wanted to be strong and take his responsibility, his love for his father, into his own hands and end it. But this wasn’t the way, he didn’t have the tools or the experience to do it alone, not with somebody like Scholl. He’d realized that in Paris. Why didn’t he now?
Suddenly he felt disoriented and terribly confused. What had been so decisive and purposeful such a short time before now seemed filmy, even vague, as if it were in a distant past. He had to stop his mind from working. For even a little while, he had to not think.
Looking around, he tried to settle on the reality of where he was. It was still cold but the drizzle had ended. The park was deserted and dark and filled with trees. Only the lighted pathways and tall buildings in the distance assured him he was in the city and not the deep woods. Looking back, he saw that he had just crossed a place where five pathways came together in a kind of hub. Which had he come down? Which was he on now?
A few feet away was a park bench, and he walked over to it and sat down. He would give himself a few moments for his mind to clear and then decide what to do next. The cold air felt clean and good, and he breathed it in deeply. Absently, he put his hands in his jacket pockets to warm them. When he did, his right hand touched the automatic. It was like an object stuffed away long ago and forgotten. Just then, something made him look up.
A man was approaching. His collar turned up, he walked slightly hunched to the side, as if he had some sort of physical impairment. As he got closer, Osborn realized that he was taller than he looked, trim, with broad shoulders and close-cropped hair. He was only a few feet from him when he lifted his head and their eyes met.
“Guten Abend,” Von Holden said.
Osborn nodded slightly, then turned away to avoid further contact, his hand sliding into his jacket pocket, gripping the automatic. The man was barely ten paces past him when he stopped and turned back. The move was unnerving, and Osborn reacted immediately. Jerking the pistol from his jacket, he pointed it directly at the man’s chest.
“Go away!” he said, enunciating the English.
Von Holden stared at him for a moment, then let his eyes fall to the gun. Osborn was agitated and nervous but his hand was steady, his finger resting easily on the trigger. The gun was a Czech Cz. Small caliber but very accurate at close range. Von Holden smiled. The gun was Bernhard Oven’s.
“What’s funny?” Osborn snapped. As he did, he saw the man glance past him over his shoulder. Immediately Osborn stepped backward, keeping the gun where it was. Turning his head slightly, he looked to his right. A second man stood in the shadow of a tree, not fifteen feet away.
“Tell him to walk over ne
xt to you.” Osborn’s eyes came back to Von Holden.
Von Holden said nothing.
“Sprechen Sie Englisch?” Osborn said.
Still Von Holden was silent.
“ Sprechen Sie Englisch?” Osborn said again, this time more forcefully.
Von Holden nodded ever so slightly.
“Then tell him to walk over to you.” Osborn held back the hammer with his thumb, the gun’s trigger pulled. If they rushed him, all he had to do was let his thumb slip sideways and the weapon would fire point-blank. “Tell him now!”
Von Holden waited a moment longer, then called out in German: “Do as he says.”
At Von Holden’s command, Viktor stepped from under the tree and slowly crossed over the grass to where Von Holden stood.
Osborn stared at them for a moment in silence, then backed slowly away, the gun still pointed at Von Holden’s chest. He continued walking backward for another twenty yards. Then, passing under a tree, he turned and ran. Crosing a lighted pathway, he bounded up a short flight of steps and ran across the grass through still more trees. Looking back, he saw them come after him. Dark figures silhouetted for only an instant against the night sky as they came on the run through the stand of trees where he had just been.
Ahead, he could see bright lights and traffic. He looked back again. The trees blended into darkness. He had to assume they were still coming, but there was no way to tell. Heart pounding, feet slipping on the wet grass beneath him, he ran on. Finally he felt pavement and saw he’d reached the edge of the park. Streetlights and a steady flow of traffic were directly in front of him. Without stopping, he ran into the street. Horns blared. He dodged one car and then another. There was a shriek of tires, then a tremendous bang as a taxi swerved to avoid him and slammed into a parked car. A split second later, another car plowed into the taxi, a piece of its bumper scything off into the darkness.