The Holcroft Covenant: A Novel

  “He’ll call me; I know he will,” she had told him over the phone minutes ago.

  “Suppose I go out for a while?” he had asked.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll reach you.”

  Don’t worry. It was an odd remark for her to make, considering where he was and how he got there—how they got there.

  It had been an extension of the madness. They had left the country inn and driven back to Montmartre, where a man had come out of a doorway and relieved them of the Citroën; they had walked through the crowded streets, past two sidewalk cafés where successive nods meant they could return to Noel’s rented car.

  From Montmartre she had directed him across Paris, over the Seine, into Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where they had stopped at a hotel; he had registered and paid for the night. It was a diversion; he did not go to his room. Instead, they had proceeded to a second hotel on the rue Chevalle, where a soft-drink sign provided him with a name for the registry: N. Fresca.

  She had left him in the lobby, telling him she would call him when she had news of her brother.

  “Explain something,” he had said. “Why are we doing all this? What difference does it make where I stay or whether or not I use my own name?”

  “You’ve been seen with me.”

  Helden. Strange name, strange woman. An odd mixture of vulnerability and strength. Whatever pain she had endured over the years she refused to turn into self-pity. She recognized her heritage; understood that the children of Nazis were hounded by the ODESSA and the Rache and they had to live with it: damned for what they were and damned for what they were not.

  Geneva could help these children; would help them. Noel had settled that for himself. He identified with them easily. But for the courage of an extraordinary mother, he could be one of them.

  But there were other, more immediate concerns. Questions that affected Geneva. Who was the elusive Anthony Beaumont? What did he stand for? What really happened to the Von Tiebolts in Brazil? How much did Johann von Tiebolt know about the covenant?

  If anyone had the answers it was Johann … John Tennyson.

  Holcroft walked back to the window; a flock of pigeons flew over a nearby roof, fanning up into the morning wind. The Von Tiebolts. Three weeks ago he had never heard the name, but now his life was inextricably involved with theirs.

  Helden. Strange name, strange girl. Filled with complications and contradictions. He had never met anyone like her. It was as if she were from another time, another place, fighting the legacies of a war that had passed into history.

  The Rache. The ODESSA … Wolfsschanze. All fanatics. Adversaries in a bloodbath that had no meaning now. It was over, had been over for thirty years. It was dead history, finished.

  The pigeons swooped down again, and in their mass attack on the rooftop, Noel suddenly saw something—understood something—he had not before. It had been there since the other night—since his meeting with Herr Oberst—and he had not perceived it.

  It was not over. The war itself had been revived. By Geneva!

  There will be men who will try to stop you, deceive you, kill you.…

  The ODESSA. The Rache. These were Geneva’s enemies! Fanatics and terrorists who would do anything to destroy the covenant. Anyone else would have exposed the account by appealing to the international courts; neither the ODESSA nor the Rache could do that. Helden was wrong—at least, partially wrong. Whatever interest both had in the children of party leaders was suspended to fight the cause of Geneva! To stop him. They had learned about the account in Switzerland—somehow, somewhere—and were committed to blocking it. If to succeed meant killing him, it was not a decision of consequence; he was expendable.

  It explained the strychnine on the plane—a horrible death that was meant for him. The terror tactics of the Rache. It clarified the events in Rio de Janeiro—gunshots at a deserted lookout and a shattered car window in the night traffic. Maurice Graff and the psychopathic followers of Brazil’s ODESSA. They knew—they all knew—about Geneva!

  And if they did, they also knew about the Von Tiebolts. That would explain what had happened in Brazil. It was never the mother; it was Johann von Tiebolt. He was running from Graff’s ODESSA; the protective brother saving what was left of the family, spiriting himself and his two sisters out of Rio.

  To live and fulfill the covenant in Geneva.

  A man will come one day and talk of a strange arrangement.… And in that “strange arrangement” was the money and the power to destroy the ODESSA—and the Rache—for certainly these were legitimate objectives of the covenant.

  Noel understood clearly now. He and John Tennyson and a man named Kessler in Berlin would control Geneva; they would direct the agency in Zurich. They would rip out the ODESSA wherever it was; they would crush the Rache. Among the amends that had to be made was the stilling of fanatics, for fanatics were the fathers of murder and genocide.

  He wanted to call Helden, to tell her that soon she could stop running—they could all stop running—stop hiding, stop living in fear. He wanted to tell her that. And he wanted to see her again.

  But he had given his word not to call her at Gallimard, not to try to reach her for any reason. It was maddening; she was maddening, yet he could not break his word.

  The telephone. He had to call the American Express office on the Champs-Elysées. He had told Sam Buonoventura he would check for messages there.

  It was a simple matter to get messages by telephone; he had done so before. No one had to know where he was. He put down his coffee and went to the phone, suddenly remembering that he had a second call to make. His mother. It was too early to call her in New York; he’d reach her later in the day.

  “I’m sorry, monsieur,” said the clerk at the American Express office. “You must sign for the cables in person. I’m very sorry.”

  Cables! Noel replaced the phone, annoyed but not angry. Getting out of the hotel room would be good for him, would take his mind off the anticipated call from Helden.

  He walked along the rue Chevalle, a cold wind whipping his face. A taxi took him across the river, into the Champs-Elysées. The air and the bright sunlight were invigorating; he rolled the window down, feeling the effects of both. For the first time in days he felt confident; he knew where he was going now. Geneva was closer, the blurred lines between enemies and friends more defined.

  Whatever was waiting for him at the American Express office seemed inconsequential. There was nothing he could not handle in New York or London. His concerns were now in Paris. He and John Tennyson would meet and talk and draw up plans, the first of which would be to go to Berlin and find Erich Kessler. They knew who their enemies were; it was a question of eluding them. Helden’s friends could help.

  As he got out of the taxi, he looked over at the tinted-glass window of the American Express office, and was struck by a thought. Was the refusal to read him his messages over the phone a trap? A means of getting him to show himself? If so, it was a bit obvious, and no doubt a tactic of British Intelligence.

  Noel smiled. He knew exactly what to say if the British picked him up: John Tennyson was no more an assassin than he was, and probably far less of one than a number of MI-Five personnel.

  He might even go a step further and suggest that the Royal Navy take a good, long look at one of its more decorated officers. All the evidence pointed to the probability that Commander Anthony Beaumont was a member of the ODESSA, recruited in Brazil by a man named Graff.

  * * *

  He felt he was falling through space, plunging downward, unable to catch his breath. His stomach was hollow and pain shot through his lower chest. He was gripped by combined feelings of grief and fear … and anger. The cablegram read:

  YOUR FATHER DIED FOUR DAYS AGO STOP UNABLE TO CONTACT YOU STOP PLEASE RESPOND BY TELEPHONE BEDFORD HILLS STOP

  MOTHER

  There was a second cable, from Lieutenant David Miles, New York Police Department.

  THE RECENT DEATH OF RICHARD HOLCROFT MAKE
S IT IMPERATIVE YOU CONTACT ME IMMEDIATELY STOP PROFESSIONALLY I RECOMMEND YOU SPEAK TO ME BEFORE REACHING ANYONE ELSE STOP

  There were the same two telephone numbers Buonoventura had given him in Rio de Janeiro, and six—six—follow-up inquiries listed by day and hour since the original message had been received at the American Express office. Miles had checked twice a day to see if his message had been picked up.

  Noel walked up the Champs-Elysées, trying to collect his thoughts, trying to control his grief.

  The only father he had ever known. “Dad” … “my father,” Richard Holcroft. Always said with affection, with love. And always with warmth and humor, for Richard Holcroft was a man of many graces, not the least of which was an ability to laugh at himself. He had guided his son—stepson—no, goddamn it, his son! Guided but never interfered, except when interference was the only alternative.

  Oh, God, he was dead!

  What caused the sharp bolts of pain—pain he understood was part of the fear and the anger—was implied in Miles’s cable. Was he somehow responsible for Richard Holcroft’s death? Oh, Christ! Was that death related to a vial of strychnine poured into a drink thirty thousand feet over the Atlantic? Was it woven into the fabric of Geneva?

  Had he somehow sacrificed the father he had known all his life for one he never knew?

  He reached the corner of the avenue George V. Across the broad intersection that teemed with traffic he saw a sign above awnings that stretched the length of the sidewalk café: FOUQUET’S. It was all familiar to him. To his left was the Hôtel George V. He had stayed there, briefly, a year ago, courtesy of an extremely wealthy hotelman, who had delusions, later proved to be just that, of duplicating its exterior in Kansas City.

  Holcroft had struck up a friendship with the assistant manager. If the man was still there, perhaps he’d let him use a telephone. If telephone calls were traced back to the George V, it would be a simple matter to learn about them. And a simpler matter to leave misleading information regarding his whereabouts.

  Anticipate.

  “But, of course, it’s my pleasure, Noel. It’s so good to see you again. I am chagrined you do not stay with us, but at these prices, I don’t blame you. Here, use my office.”

  “I’ll charge the calls to my credit card, of course.”

  “I’m not worried, my friend. Later, an apéritif, perhaps?”

  “I’d like that,” said Noel.

  It was ten-forty-five, Paris time. Quarter to six in New York. If Miles was as anxious as his message implied, the hour was insignificant. He picked up the phone and placed the call.

  Noel looked at Miles’s message again.

  THE RECENT DEATH OF RICHARD HOLCROFT … PROFESSIONALLY I RECOMMEND YOU SPEAK TO ME BEFORE REACHING ANYONE ELSE …

  The recommendation had an ominous tone; the “anyone else” had to mean his mother.

  He put the paper down on the desk and reached into his pocket for Althene’s cablegram.

  YOUR FATHER DIED FOUR DAYS AGO … UNABLE

  TO CONTACT YOU …

  The guilt he felt at not having been with her nearly matched the guilt and the fear and the anger that consumed him when he considered the possibility that he was responsible for the death. Possibility? He knew it, he felt it.

  He wondered—painfully—if Miles had reached Althene. And if he had, what had he said to her?

  The telephone rang.

  “Is this Noel Holcroft?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry you had trouble reaching me.…”

  “I won’t waste time going into that,” interrupted Miles, “except to say you’ve violated federal laws.”

  “Wait a minute,” broke in Noel angrily. “What am I guilty of? You found me. I’m not hiding.”

  “Finding you after trying to locate you for damn near a week is called flagrantly ignoring and disregarding the law. You were not to leave the City of New York without telling us.”

  “There were pressing personal matters. I left word. You haven’t got a case.”

  “Then let’s try ‘obstruction of justice.’ ”

  “What?”

  “You were in the lounge of that British seven-forty-seven, and you and I both know what happened. Or, should I say, what didn’t happen?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That drink was meant for you, not Thornton.”

  Holcroft knew it was coming, but his knowing it did not lessen the impact. Still, he was not about to agree without a protest. “That’s the craziest goddamn thing I’ve ever heard,” he said.

  “Come on! You’re a bright, upstanding citizen from a bright, upstanding family, but your behavior for the past five days has been stupid and less than candid.”

  “You’re insulting me, but you’re not saying anything. You mentioned in your message—”

  “We’ll get to that,” interrupted the detective. “I want you to know whose side you’re on. You see, I want you to cooperate, not fight.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “We traced you to Rio. We spoke to—”

  “You what?” Had Sam turned on him?

  “It wasn’t hard. Incidentally, your friend Buonoventura doesn’t know. His cover for you didn’t wash. He said you were in a boat out of Curaçao, but Dutch immigration didn’t have you in the territory. We got a list of the overseas telephone numbers he called and checked the airlines. You were on Braniff out of New York, and you stayed at a Pôrto Alegre Hotel in Rio.”

  The amateur could not match the professional. “Sam said you called a couple of times.”

  “Sure did,” agreed Miles. “You left Rio and we wanted to find out where you went; we knew he’d get in touch with you. Didn’t you get my message at the hotel in London?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll take your word. Messages get lost.”

  But that message had not been lost, thought Noel. It had been stolen by the men of Wolfsschanze. “I know where I stand now. Get to the point.”

  “You don’t quite know,” Miles replied. “We talked to the embassy in Rio, to a man named Anderson. He said you told him quite a story. How you were trapped, chased, shot at. He said he didn’t believe a word of it; considered you a troublemaker and was glad to get you out of Brazil.”

  “I know. He drove me to the airport.”

  “Do you want to tell me about it?” asked the detective.

  Noel stared at the wall. It would be so easy to unburden himself, to seek official protection. The faceless Lieutenant Miles was a symbol of authority. But he was the wrong symbol in the wrong place at the wrong time. “No. There’s nothing you can do. It’s been resolved.”

  “Has it?”

  “Yes.”

  Neither spoke for several seconds. “All right, Mr. Holcroft. I hope you change your mind, because I think I can help you. I think you need help.” Miles paused. “I now make a formal request for your return to the City of New York. You are considered a prime witness in a homicide and intrinsic to our jurisdictional interrogations.”

  “Sony. Not now.”

  “I didn’t think you would. So let me try informally. It concerns your father.”

  The terrible news was coming, and he could not help himself. He said the words quietly. “He was killed, wasn’t he?”

  “I didn’t hear that. You see, if I did, I’d have to go to my superior and report it. Say you said it without provocation. You drew a conclusion that couldn’t possibly be based on anything I said to you. I’d have to request extradition.”

  “Get off it, Miles! Your telephone message wasn’t subtle! ‘The recent death,’ et cetera; ‘professionally speaking, I recommend,’ et cetera! What the hell am I supposed to think?”

  Again, there was a pause from the New York end. “Okay. It’s checkmate. You’ve got a case.”

  “He was murdered, wasn’t he?”

  “We think so.”

  “What have you said to my mother?”

  “Nothing. It’s not my jurisdiction. She doesn’t even
know my name. And that answers my next question. You haven’t talked to her yet.”

  “Obviously. Tell me what happened.”

  “Your father was in what can best be described as a very unusual accident. He died an hour later, at the hospital, as a result of the injuries.”

  “What was the accident?”

  “An old man from the Bronx lost control of his car near the Plaza Hotel. The car went wild, jumped the curb, and plunged into a crowd of people on the sidewalk. Three were killed instantly. Your father was thrown against the wall; actually, he was pinned, almost crushed.”

  “You’re saying the car aimed for him!”

  “Hard to tell. There was mass confusion, of course.”

  “Then what are you saying?”

  Miles hesitated. “That the car aimed for him.”

  “Who was the driver?”

  “A seventy-two-year-old retired accountant with an inflamed heart, a pacemaker, no family at all, and a license that expired several years ago. The ‘pacer’ was shorted in the accident; the man died on the way to the hospital.”

  “What was his connection to my father?”

  “So far, no definite answers. But I’ve got a theory. Do you want to hear it?”

  “Of course!”

  “Will you come back to New York?”

  “Don’t press me. What’s your theory?”

  “I think the old guy was recruited. I think there was someone else in that car, probably in the back seat, holding a gun to his head. During the confusion, he smashed the pacer and got away. I think it was an execution made to look like a freak accident in which more than the target got killed.”

  Noel held his breath. There had been another “freak accident.” A subway in London had gone out of control, killing five people. And among those killed was the only man who could shed light on John Tennyson’s employment at the Guardian.

  It was bloody well murder.…

  The thought of a connection was appalling. “Aren’t you reaching, Miles?” Holcroft asked.

  “I said it was a theory, but not without some support. When I saw the name Holcroft on the accident report, I did a little digging. The old man from the Bronx has an interesting history. He came to this country in ’forty-seven, supposedly a penniless Jewish immigrant, a victim of Dachau. Only he wasn’t penniless, as half a dozen bankbooks show, and his apartment is a fortress. Besides which, he made thirteen trips to Germany and back since he got here.”