The Holcroft Covenant: A Novel

  “Not exactly.” Noel took the card and read the name: PETER BALDWIN, ESQ.; it meant nothing to him. WELLINGTON SECURITY SYSTEMS, LTD. THE STRAND, LONDON, W1A. There was a telephone number underneath. Holcroft had never heard of the British company. He turned the card over; on the back was scribbled ST. REGIS HOTEL. RM. 411.

  “He insisted that I ring your apartment in case you’d gotten back and I didn’t see you come in. I told him that was crazy.”

  “He could have telephoned me himself,” said Noel, walking toward the elevator. “I’m in the book.”

  “He told me he tried, but your phone was out of order.” The elevator door closed on the man’s last words. Holcroft read the name again as the elevator climbed to the fifth floor. Peter Baldwin, Esq. Who was he? And since when was his phone out of order?

  He opened his apartment door and reached for the light switch on the wall. Two table lamps went on simultaneously; Noel dropped his suitcase and stared in disbelief at the room.

  Nothing was the same as it was three days ago! Nothing. Every piece of furniture, every chair, every table, every vase and ashtray, was moved into another position. His couch had been in the center of the room; it was now in the far-right corner. Each sketch and painting on the walls had been shifted around, none where it had been before! The stereo was no longer on the shelf; instead it was neatly arranged on a table. His bar, always at the rear of the living room, was now at the left of the door. His drafting board, usually by the window, was now by itself ten feet in front of him, the stool somewhere else—God knew where. It was the strangest sensation he had ever had. Everything familiar, yet not familiar at all. Reality distorted, out of focus.

  He stood in the open doorway. Images of the room as it had been kept reappearing in front of his eyes, only to be replaced by what was in front of him now.

  “What happened?” He heard his own words, unsure they were his at first.

  He ran to the couch; the telephone was always by the couch, on a table at its right arm. But the couch had been moved, and the telephone had not been moved with it. He spun around toward the center of the room. Where was the table? It was not there; an armchair was where the table should be. The telephone was not there, either! Where was the telephone? Where was the table? Where the hell was the telephone?

  It was by the window. There was his kitchen table by the living-room window, and the telephone was on top of it. The large center window that looked out at the apartment building across the wide courtyard below. The telephone wires had been taken out from under the wall-to-wall carpeting and moved to the window. It was crazy! Who would take the trouble to lift tacked-down carpeting and move telephone wires?

  He raced to the table, picked up the phone, and pressed the intercom button that connected him to the switchboard in the lobby. He stabbed the signal button repeatedly; there was no answer. He kept his finger on it; finally, the harried voice of Jack the doorman answered.

  “All right, all right. This is the lobby.…”

  “Jack, it’s Mr. Holcroft. Who came up to my apartment while I was away?”

  “Who came what, sir?”

  “Up to my apartment!”

  “Were you robbed, Mr. Holcroft?”

  “I don’t know yet. I just know that everything’s been moved around. Who was here?”

  “Nobody. I mean, nobody I know of. And the other guys didn’t say anything. I’m relieved at four in the morning by Ed, and he’s off at noon. Louie takes over then.”

  “Can you call them?”

  “Hell, I can call the police!”

  The word was jarring. “Police” meant questions—Where had he been? Whom had he seen?—and Noel was not sure he wanted to give any answers.

  “No, don’t call the police. Not yet. Not until I see if anything’s missing. It might be someone’s idea of a joke. I’ll call you back.”

  “I’ll call the other guys.”

  Holcroft hung up. He sat on the wide windowsill and appraised the room. Everything. Not a single piece of furniture was where it had been before!

  He was holding something in his left hand: the business card. PETER BALDWIN, ESQ.

  “… he was very agitated, you know what I mean?… he insisted I ring your apartment … your phone was out of order.…”

  ST. REGIS HOTEL. RM. 411.

  Noel picked up the phone and dialed. He knew the number well; he lunched frequently at the King Cole Grill.

  “Yes? Baldwin here.” The voice was British, the greeting abrupt.

  “This is Noel Holcroft, Mr. Baldwin. You tried to reach me.”

  “Thank heavens! Where are you?”

  “Home. In my apartment. I just got back.”

  “Back? From where?”

  “I’m not sure that’s any of your business.”

  “For God’s sake, I’ve traveled over three thousand miles to see you! It’s dreadfully important. Now where were you?”

  The Englishman’s breathing was audible over the phone; the man’s intensity seemed somehow related to fear. “I’m flattered you came all that distance to see me, but it still doesn’t give you the right to ask personal questions.…”

  “I have every right!” broke in Baldwin. “I spent twenty years With MI Six, and we have a great deal to talk about! You have no idea what you’re doing. No one does but me.”

  “You what? We what?”

  “Let me put it this way. Cancel Geneva. Cancel it, Mr. Holcroft, until we’ve talked!”

  “Geneva?…” Noel felt suddenly sick to his stomach. How would this Englishman know about Geneva? How could he know?

  A light flickered outside the window; someone in an apartment directly across the courtyard was lighting a cigarette. Despite his agitation, Holcroft’s eyes were drawn to it.

  “There’s someone at the door,” Baldwin said. “Stay on the phone. I’ll get rid of whoever it is and be right back.”

  Noel could hear Baldwin put the telephone down, then the sound of a door opening and indistinguishable voices. Across the courtyard, in the window, a match was struck again, illuminating the long blond hair of a woman behind a sheer curtain.

  Holcroft realized there was silence on the line; he could hear no voices now. Moments went by; the Englishman did not return.

  “Baldwin? Baldwin, where are you? Baldwin!”

  For a third time a match flared in the window across the way. Noel stared at it; it seemed unnecessary. He could see the glow of a cigarette in the blond woman’s mouth. And then he saw what was in her other hand, silhouetted behind the sheer curtain: a telephone. She was holding a telephone to her ear and looking over at his window—looking, he was sure, at him.

  “Baldwin? Where the hell are you?”

  There was a click; the line went dead.

  “Baldwin!”

  The woman in the window slowly lowered the telephone, paused for a moment, and walked away, out of sight.

  Holcroft stared at the window, then at the telephone in his hand. He waited until he got the active line, then redialed the St. Regis.

  “I’m sorry, sir, room four-eleven’s telephone seems to be out of order. We’ll send someone up right away. May I have your number and we’ll give it to Mr. Baldwin.”

  … your phone was out of order.…

  Something was happening that Noel did not understand. He knew only that he would not leave his name or number with the operator at the St. Regis. He hung up and looked again at the window across the courtyard Whatever light there had been was gone. The window was dark; he could see only the white of the curtain.

  He pushed himself away from the windowsill and wandered aimlessly about the room, around familiar possessions in unfamiliar locations. He was not sure what to do; he supposed he should see if anything was missing. Nothing seemed to be, but it was difficult to tell.

  The telephone buzzed: the intercom from the lobby switchboard. He answered it.

  “It’s Jack, Mr. Holcroft. I just spoke to Ed and Louie. Neither of ’em know anythin
g about anyone going up to your place. They’re honest guys. They wouldn’t screw around. None of us would.”

  “Thanks, Jack. I believe you.”

  “You want me to call the police?”

  “No.” Noel tried to sound casual. “I have an idea someone at the office was playing a joke. A couple of the fellows have keys.”

  “I didn’t see anybody. Neither did Ed or—”

  “It’s okay, Jack,” interrupted Holcroft. “Forget it. The night I left we had a party. One or two stayed over.” It was all Noel could think of to say.

  Suddenly it occurred to him that he had not looked in his bedroom. He went there now, his hand reaching for the light switch on the wall.

  He expected it, but it was still a shock. The disorientation was now somehow complete.

  Again, each piece of furniture had been moved to a different position. The bed was the first thing that struck his eye; it was oddly frightening. No part of it touched the wall. Instead, it was in the center of the room, isolated. His bureau stood in front of a window; a small writing desk was dwarfed against the expanse of the right wall. As had happened minutes ago, when first he’d seen the living room, the images of what his bedroom looked like three days ago kept flashing before him, replaced by the strangeness of what he now observed.

  Then he saw it and gasped. Hanging down from the ceiling, strapped together with dull black tape, was his second telephone, the extension cord snaking up the wall and across the ceiling to the hook that held it.

  It was spinning slowly.

  The pain shifted from his stomach to his chest; his eyes were transfixed on the sight, on the suspended instrument revolving slowly in midair. He was afraid to look beyond, but he knew he had to; he had to understand.

  And when he did, his breath came back to him. The phone was in the direct path of his bathroom door and the door was open. He saw the curtains billowing in the window above the basin. The steady stream of cold wind was making the telephone spin.

  He walked quickly into the bathroom to shut the window. As he was about to pull the curtains, he saw a brief flash of illumination outside; a match had been struck in another window across the courtyard, the flare startling in the darkness. He looked out.

  There was the woman again! The blond-haired woman, her upper body silhouetted beyond another set of sheer curtains. He stared at the figure, mesmerized by it.

  She turned as she had turned before, and walked away as she had walked away minutes ago. Out of sight. And the dim light in the window went out.

  What was happening? What did it mean? Things were being orchestrated to frighten him. But by whom and for what purpose? And what had happened to Peter Baldwin, Esq., he of the intense voice and the command to cancel Geneva? Was Baldwin a part of the terror, or was he a victim of it?

  Victim … victim? It was an odd word to use, he thought. Why should there be any victims? And what did Baldwin mean when he said he had “spent twenty years with MI Six”?

  MI Six? A branch of British intelligence. If he remembered correctly, MI Five was the section that dealt with domestic matters; Six concerned itself with problems outside the country. The English CIA, as it were.

  Good God! Did the British know about the Geneva document? Was British intelligence aware of the massive theft of thirty years ago? On the surface, it would appear so.… Yet that was not what Peter Baldwin had implied.

  You have no idea what you’re doing. No one does but me.

  And then there was silence, and the line went dead.

  Holcroft walked out of the bathroom and paused beneath the suspended telephone; it was barely moving now, but it had not stopped. It was an ugly sight, made macabre by the profusion of dull black tape that held the instrument together. As if the phone had been mummified, never to be used again.

  He continued toward the bedroom door, then instinctively stopped and turned. Something had caught his eye, something he had not noticed before. The center drawer of the small writing desk was open. He looked closer. Inside the drawer was a sheet of paper.

  His breathing stopped as he stared at the page below.

  It couldn’t be. It was insane. The single sheet of paper was brownish yellow. With age. It was identical to the page that had been kept in a vault in Geneva for thirty years. The letter filled with threats written by fanatics who revered a martyr named Heinrich Clausen. The writing was the same; the odd Germanic printing of English words, the ink that was faded but still legible.

  And what was legible was astonishing. For it had been written more than thirty years ago.

  NOEL CLAUSEN-HOLCROFT NOTHING IS AS IT WAS FOR YOU. NOTHING CAN EVER BE THE SAME.…

  Before he read further, Noel picked up an edge of the page. It crumbled under his touch.

  Oh, God! It was written thirty years ago!

  And that fact made the remainder of the message frightening.

  THE PAST WAS PREPARATION, THE FUTURE IS COMMITTED TO THE MEMORY OF A MAN AND HIS DREAM. HIS WAS AN ACT OF DARING AND BRILLIANCE IN A WORLD GONE MAD. NOTHING MUST STAND IN THE WAY OF THAT DREAM’S FULFILLMENT.

  WE ARE THE SURVIVORS OF WOLFSSCHANZE. THOSE OF US WHO LIVE WILL DEDICATE OUR LIVES AND BODIES TO THE PROTECTION OF THAT MAN’S DREAM. IT WILL BE FULFILLED, FOR IT IS ALL THAT IS LEFT. AN ACT OF MERCY THAT WELL SHOW THE WORLD THAT WE WERE BETRAYED, THAT WE WERE NOT AS THE WORLD BELIEVED US TO BE.

  WE, THE MEN OF WOLFSSCHANZE, KNOW WHAT THE BEST OF US WERE. AS HEINRICH CLAUSEN KNEW.

  IT IS NOW UP TO YOU, NOEL CLAUSEN-HOLCROFT, TO COMPLETE WHAT YOUR FATHER BEGAN. YOU ARE THE WAY. YOUR FATHER WISHED IT SO.

  MANY WILL TRY TO STOP YOU. TO THROW OPEN THE FLOODGATES AND DESTROY THE DREAM. BUT THE MEN OF WOLFSSCHANZE DO SURVIVE. YOU HAVE OUR WORD THAT ALL THOSE WHO INTERFERE WILL BE STOPPED THEMSELVES.

  ANY WHO STAND IN YOUR WAY, WHO TRY TO DISSUADE YOU, WHO TRY TO DECEIVE YOU WTTH LIES, WILL BE ELIMINATED.

  AS YOU AND YOURS WILL BE SHOULD YOU HESITATE. OR FAIL.

  THIS IS OUR OATH TO YOU.

  Noel grabbed the paper out of the drawer; it fell apart in his hand. He let the fragments fall to the floor.

  “Goddamned maniacs!” He slammed the drawer shut and ran out of the bedroom. Where was the telephone? Where the hell was the goddamned telephone? By the window—that was it; it was on the kitchen table by the fucking window!

  “Maniacs!” he screamed again at no one. But not really at no one: at a man in Geneva who had been on a train bound for Zurich. Maniacs might have written that page of garbage thirty years ago, but now, thirty years later, other maniacs had delivered it! They had broken into his home, invaded his privacy, touched his belongings.… God knows what else, he thought, thinking of Peter Baldwin, Esq. A man who had traveled thousands of miles to see him, and talk with him … silence, a click, a dead telephone line.

  He looked at his watch. It was almost one o’clock in the morning. What was it in Zurich? Six? Seven? The banks in Switzerland opened at eight. La Grande Banque de Genève had a branch in Zurich; Manfredi would be there.

  The window. He was standing in front of the window where he had stood only minutes ago, waiting for Baldwin to come back on the phone. The window. Across the courtyard in the opposite apartment. The three brief flares of a match … the blond-haired woman in the window!

  Holcroft put his hand in his pocket to make sure he had his keys. He did. He ran to the door, let himself out, raced for the elevator, and pushed the button. The indicator showed that the car was on the tenth floor; the arrow did not move.

  God damn it!

  He ran to the staircase and started down, taking the steps two at a time. He reached the ground floor and dashed out into the lobby.

  “Jesus, Mr. Holcroft!” Jack stared at him. “You scared the shit out of me!”

  “Do you know the doorman in the next building?” shouted Noel.

  “Which one?”

  “Christ! That one!” Holcroft gestured to the right.

  “That’s three-eighty. Yeah, sure.”

/>   “Come on with me!”

  “Hey, wait a minute, Mr. Holcroft. I can’t leave here.”

  “We’ll only be a minute. There’s twenty dollars in it for you.”

  “Only a minute.…”

  The doorman at three-eighty greeted them, understanding quickly that he was to give accurate information to Jack’s friend.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but there’s no one in that apartment. Hasn’t been for almost three weeks. But I’m afraid it’s been rented; the new tenants will be coming in.…”

  “There is someone there!” said Noel, trying to control himself. “A blond-haired woman. I’ve got to find out who she is.”

  “A blond-haired woman? Kind of medium height, sort of good-looking, smokes a lot?”

  “Yes, that’s the one! Who is she?”

  “You live in your place long, mister?”

  “What?”

  “I mean, have you been there a long time?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “I think maybe you’ve been drinking.…”

  “What the hell are you talking about?! Who is that woman?”

  “Not is, mister. Was. The blond woman you’re talking about was Mrs. Palatyne. She died a month ago.”

  Noel sat in the chair in front of the window, staring across the courtyard. Someone was trying to drive him crazy. But why? It did not make sense! Fanatics, maniacs from thirty years ago, had sprung across three decades, commanding younger, unknown troops thirty years later. Again, why?

  He had called the St. Regis. Room four-eleven’s telephone was working, but it was continuously busy. And a woman he had seen clearly did not exist. But she did exist! And she was a part of it; he knew it.

  He got out of the chair, walked to the strangely placed bar, and poured himself a drink. He looked at his watch; it was one-fifty. He had ten minutes to wait before the overseas operator would call him back; the bank could be reached at two A.M., New York time. He carried his glass back to the chair in front of the window. On the way, he passed his FM radio. It was not where it usually was of course; that was why he noticed it. Absently, he turned it on. He liked music; it soothed him.