The Holcroft Covenant: A Novel

  “Is she the ‘someone else’ you were with last night?”

  “Yes,” replied Holcroft. “I want to tell you about her, what she’s gone through, what she’s going through now. She and thousands like her are part of the story.”

  “I think I may know,” said Kessler. “Die Verwünschte Kinder.”

  “The what?”

  “The Verwünschte Kinder. Verwünschung is German for a curse. Or one damned.”

  “The Children of the Damned,” said Noel. “She used the expression.”

  “It’s a term they gave themselves. Thousands of young people—not so young now—who fled the country because they convinced themselves they couldn’t live with the guilt of Nazi Germany. They rejected everything German, sought new identities, new life-styles. They’re very much like those hordes of young Americans who left the United States for Canada and Sweden in protest against the Vietnam policies. These groups form subcultures, but none can really reject their roots. They are German; they are American. They migrate in packs and cling together, taking strength from the very pasts they’ve rejected. The proddings of guilt are a heavy burden. Can you understand?”

  “Not really,” said Holcroft. “But then, I’m not built that way. I’m not going to take on a guilt that isn’t mine.”

  Kessler looked into Noel’s eyes. “I submit you may have. You say you won’t run from this covenant of yours, yet terrible things have happened to you.”

  Holcroft considered the scholar’s words. “There may be some truth in that, but the circumstances are different. I didn’t leave anything. I guess I was selected.”

  “Not part of the damned,” said Kessler, “but part of the chosen?”

  “Privileged, anyway.”

  The scholar nodded. “There’s a word for that, too. Perhaps you’ve heard of it Sonnenkinder.”

  “Sonnenkinder?” Noel frowned. “If I remember, it was in one of those courses I didn’t exactly shine in. Anthropology, maybe.”

  “Or philosophy,” suggested Kessler. “It’s a philosophical concept developed by Thomas J. Perry, in England in the nineteen-twenties, and before him by Bachofen, in Switzerland, and by his disciples in München. The theory being that the Sonnenkinder—the Children of the Sun—have been with us throughout the ages. They’re the shapers of history, the most brilliant among us, rulers of epochs … the privileged.”

  Holcroft nodded. “I remember now. They were ruined by that privilege of theirs. They became depraved, or something. Incestuous, I think.”

  “It’s only a theory,” said Kessler. “We’re straying again; you’re an easy man to talk to. You were saying about this Von Tiebolt daughter that life is difficult for her.”

  “For all of them. And more than difficult. It’s crazy. They’re running all the time. They have to live like fugitives.”

  “They’re easy prey for fanatics,” agreed Erich.

  “Like the ODESSA and the Rache?”

  “Yes. Such organizations can’t function efficiently within Germany itself; they’re not tolerated. So they operate in other countries where disaffected expatriates such as the Verwünschkinder have gravitated. They want only to stay alive and vital, waiting for the chance to return to Germany.”

  “Return?”

  Kessler held up his hand. “Please God, they never will, but they can’t accept that. The Rache once wanted the Bonn government to be an arm of the Comintern, but even Moscow rejected them; they’ve become nothing more than terrorists. The ODESSA have always wanted to revive Nazism. They’re scorned in Germany.”

  “Still, they go after the children,” said Noel. “Helden used the phrase ‘damned for what they were, damned for what they weren’t.’ ”

  “An apt judgment.”

  “They should be stopped. Some of that money in Geneva should be used to cripple the ODESSA and the Rache.”

  “I wouldn’t disagree with you.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” said Holcroft. “Let’s get back to Geneva.”

  “By all means.”

  Noel had covered the objectives of the covenant and defined the conditions demanded of the inheritors. It was time to concentrate on what had happened to him.

  He began with the murder on the plane, the terror in New York, the rearranged apartment, the letter from the men of Wolfsschanze, the telephone call from Peter Baldwin and the subsequent brutal killings it engendered. He spoke of the flight to Rio and a man with thick eyebrows: Anthony Beaumont, ODESSA agent. He told of the doctored records at Rio’s Department of Immigration and the strange meeting with Maurice Graff. He emphasized MI Five’s intrusion in London and the astonishing news that British Intelligence believed Johann von Tiebolt was the assassin they called the Tinamou.

  “The Tinamou?” broke in Kessler, stunned, his face flushed. It was his first interruption of Holcroft’s narrative.

  “Yes. You know something about him?”

  “Only what I’ve read.”

  “I gather some people think he’s been responsible for dozens of assassinations.”

  “And the British think it’s Johann von Tiebolt?”

  “They’re wrong,” said Noel. “I’m certain they know it now. Something happened yesterday afternoon that proves it. You’ll understand when I come to it.”

  “Go on.”

  He touched briefly on the evening with Gretchen, the photograph of Anthony Beaumont. He went on to Helden and Herr Oberst, then to the death of Richard Holcroft. He described the calls between himself and a detective in New York named Miles, as well as conversations with his mother.

  He told of the green Fiat that had followed them to Barbizon, and the man with the pockmarked face.

  Then came the madness of the fête d’hiver. How he had tried to trap the man in the Fiat and had himself nearly been killed.

  “I told you a few minutes ago the British were wrong about Tennyson,” Noel said.

  “Tennyson? Oh, the name Von Tiebolt assumed.”

  “That’s right. MI Five was convinced that everything that happened in Montereau, including the man with the pockmarked face who was following us, was the work of the Tinamou. But that man was killed; he worked for Von Tiebolt; they knew that. Helden even confirmed it.”

  “And,” interrupted Kessler, “the Tinamou would not kill his own man.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Then the agent will tell his superiors.…”

  “He can’t,” broke in Noel. “He was shot saving Helden’s life. But identifications will be made; the British will piece it together.”

  “Will the British find the agent who died?”

  “Word will get back to them. It has to. The police were everywhere; they’ll find his body.”

  “Can he be traced to you?”

  “It’s possible. We fought in the square; people will remember. But as Helden put it: We were followed; we didn’t do the following. There’s no reason why we should know anything.”

  “You sound unsure.”

  “Before the agent died, I decided to mention Baldwin’s name to him, to see if I could learn anything. He reacted as if I’d fired a gun in front of his face. He pleaded with Helden and me to get in touch with a man named Payton-Jones. We were supposed to tell him everything that happened; tell him to find out who attacked us, who killed Von Tiebolt’s man, and most important, to tell MI Five he believed it was all related to Peter Baldwin.”

  “To Baldwin? He’d been with MI Six, you said?”

  “Yes. He’d gone to them some time ago with information about the survivors of Wolfsschanze.”

  “Wolfsschanze?” Kessler repeated the name softly. “That was the letter Manfredi gave you in Geneva, the one written over thirty years ago.”

  “That’s right. The agent said we were to tell Payton-Jones to go back to Baldwin’s file. To ‘code Wolfsschanze.’ That was the phrase he used.”

  “In his phone call to you in New York, did Baldwin mention Wolfsschanze?” asked Kessler.

  “No
. He said only that I should stay away from Geneva; that he knew things no one else knew. Then he went to answer the door and he never came back.”

  Kessler’s eyes were colder now. “So Baldwin had learned about Geneva and this Wolfsschanze’s commitment to it.”

  “How much he learned we don’t know. It could be very little, just rumors.”

  “But these rumors are enough to stop you from going to MI Five. Even the advantage of warning them that Beaumont is ODESSA could be too great a price. The British would question you and the girl at length; there are a thousand ways, and they’re experts. Baldwin’s name might surface and they would go back to his file. You can’t take that chance.”

  “I came to the same conclusion,” said Holcroft, impressed.

  “Perhaps there’s another way to get Beaumont away from you.”

  “How?”

  “The ODESSA is loathed here in Germany. Word to the proper people could result in his removal. You’d never have to reach the British yourself, never have to risk Baldwin’s name coming to light.”

  “Could that be arranged?”

  “Unquestionably. If Beaumont’s really an ODESSA agent, a brief message from the Bonn government to the Foreign Office would be enough. I know any number of men who could send it.”

  Relief swept over Holcroft. One more obstacle was being removed. “I’m glad we met … that you’re you and not somebody else.”

  “Don’t be too quick to make that judgment. You want my answer. Will I join you? Frankly, I—”

  “I don’t want your answer yet,” interrupted Noel. “You were fair with me, and I have to be fair with you, I’m not finished. There was tonight.”

  “Tonight?” Kessler was disturbed, impatient.

  “Yes. The last couple of hours, in fact.”

  “What happened … tonight?”

  Noel leaned forward. “We know about the Rache and the ODESSA. We’re not sure how much they know about Geneva, but we’re damned sure what they’d do if they knew enough. We know about the men of Wolfs-schanze. Whoever they are, they’re crazy—no better than the others—but in their own strange way they’re on our side; they want Geneva to succeed. But there’s someone else. Someone—something—much more powerful than the others. I found that out tonight.”

  “What are you saying?” The tone of Kessler’s voice did not change.

  “A man followed me from my hotel. He was on a motorbike and stayed with my taxi across Berlin.”

  “A man on a motorbike?”

  “Yes. Like a damned fool I led him here. I realized how stupid that was, and knew I had to stop him. I managed to do it, but I never meant it to happen the way it did. He was no part of the Rache, no part of the ODESSA. He hated them both, called them butchers and clowns.…”

  “He called them …” Kessler was silent for a moment. Then he continued, regaining part of the composure he had lost. “Tell me everything that happened, everything that was said.”

  “Do you have any ideas?”

  “No.… Not at all. I’m merely interested. Tell me.”

  Holcroft had no difficulty remembering it all. The chase, the trap, the exchange of words, the gunshot. When he had finished, Kessler asked him to go back to the words he and the man in the black leather jacket had said to each other. Then he asked Noel to repeat them again. And again.

  “Who was he?” Holcroft knew that Kessler’s mind was racing ahead of his. “Who are they?”

  “There are several possibilities,” said the German, “but obviously they’re Nazis. Neo-Nazis, to be precise. Descendants of the party, a splinter faction that has no use for the ODESSA. It happens.”

  “But how would they know about Geneva?”

  “Millions stolen from the occupied countries, from Wehrmacht payrolls, from the Finanzministerium. All banked in Switzerland. Such massive manipulations could not be kept completely secret.”

  Something bothered Noel, something Kessler had just said, but he could not put his finger on it “But what good would it do them? They can’t get the money. They could only tie it up in the courts for years. Where do they benefit?”

  “You don’t understand the hard-core Nazi. None of you ever did. It’s not merely how he can benefit. It’s of equal importance to him that others do not benefit. That was his essential destructiveness.”

  There was a sudden, loud commotion outside the booth. A single crash, then several; followed by a woman’s scream that triggered other screams.

  The curtain across the booth was yanked aside. The figure of a man loomed suddenly in the open space and plunged forward, falling over the table, his eyes wide and staring, blood streaming from his mouth and his neck. His face was contorted, his body wracked with convulsions; his hands lurched over the surface of the table, gripping the sides between Holcroft and Kessler. He whispered, gasping for air, “Wolfsschanze! Soldaten von Wolfsschanze!”

  He raised his head in the start of a scream. His breath was forced out of him, and his head crashed down on the table. The man in the black leather jacket was dead.

  26

  The next moments were as bewildering to Noel as they were chaotic. The screaming and the shouting grew louder; waves of panic spread throughout the pub. The blood-soaked man had slipped off the table and was now sprawled on the floor.

  “Rudi! Rudi!”

  “Herr Kessler! Come with me!”

  “Quickly!” yelled Erich.

  “What?”

  “This way, my friend. You can’t be seen here.”

  “But he’s the one!”

  “Say nothing, Noel. Please, take my arm.”

  “What? Where?…”

  “Your briefcase! The papers!”

  Holcroft grabbed the papers and shoved them into the case. He felt himself being pulled into a circle of onlookers. He was not sure where he was being taken, but that it was away from the dead man in the black leather jacket was enough. He followed blindly.

  Kessler pulled him through the crowd. In front of Kessler was the manager, parting the bodies in their path, the path that led to a closed door beneath and to the left of the staircase. The manager took a key from his pocket, opened the door, and rushed the three of them inside. He slammed the door shut and turned to Kessler.

  “I don’t know what to say, gentlemen! It’s terrible. A drunken brawl.”

  “No doubt, Rudi. And we thank you,” replied Kessler.

  “Natürlich. A man of your stature can’t be involved.”

  “You’re most kind. Is there a way outside?”

  “Yes. My private entrance. Over here.”

  The entrance led into an alleyway. “This way,” Kessler said. “My car’s on the street.”

  They hurried out of the alley into the Kurfürstendamm, turning left on the sidewalk. To the right, an excited crowd had gathered in front of the pub’s entrance. Farther on, Noel could see a policeman running up the street.

  “Quickly,” said Kessler.

  The car was a vintage Mercedes; they climbed in. Kessler started the engine, but did not idle it. Instead, he put the car in gear and sped west.

  “That man … in the jacket … he was the one who followed me,” Holcroft whispered.

  “I gathered as much,” answered Kessler. “He found his way back, after all.”

  “My God,” cried Noel. “What did I do?”

  “You didn’t kill him, if that’s what you mean.”

  Holcroft stared at Kessler. “What?”

  “You didn’t kill that man.”

  “The gun went off! He was shot.”

  “I don’t doubt it. But the bullet didn’t kill him.”

  “What did then?”

  “Obviously you didn’t see his throat. He had been garroted.”

  “Baldwin in New York!”

  “Wolfsschanze in Berlin,” answered Kessler. “His death was timed to the split second. Someone in that restaurant outside the booth, brought him to within feet of our table and used the noise and the crowd to co
ver the execution.”

  “Oh, Jesus! Then whoever it was …” Noel could not finish the statement; fear was making him ill. He wanted to vomit.

  “Whoever it was,” completed Kessler, “knows now that I am part of Geneva. So, you have your answer; for I have no choice. I’m with you.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Holcroft “I wanted you to have a choice.”

  “I know you did, and I thank you for it. However, I must insist on one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “My brother, Hans, in Munich, must be made part of the covenant.”

  Noel recalled Manfredi’s words; there were no restrictions in this respect. The only stipulation was that each family had one vote. “There’s nothing to prevent him, if he wants to.”

  “He’ll want to. We are very close. You’ll like him. He’s a fine doctor.”

  “I’d say you were both fine doctors.”

  “He heals. I merely expound.… I’m also driving aimlessly. I’d ask you out to my house, but under the circumstances I’d better not.”

  “I’ve done enough damage. But you should get back as soon as you can.”

  “Why?”

  “If we’re lucky, nobody’ll give your name to the police, and it won’t matter. But if someone does—a waiter or anybody who knows you—you can say you were on your way out when it happened.”

  Kessler shook his head. “I’m a passive man. Such thoughts would not have occurred to me.”

  “Three weeks ago they wouldn’t have occurred to me, either. Let me off near a taxi stand. I’ll go to my hotel and get my suitcase.”

  “Nonsense. I’ll drive you.”

  “We shouldn’t be seen together anymore. That’s asking for complications.”

  “I must learn to listen to you. When will we see each other, then?”

  “I’ll call you from Paris. I’m meeting with Von Tiebolt in a day or so. Then the three of us have to get to Geneva. There’s very little time left.”