Prime Target u-10

by Hugh Miller

  As soon as the door was shut he took a pen torch from his pocket and walked along the rows of boxes, shining the torch obliquely on each escutcheon plate, making the engraved numbers stand out.

  Emily Selby’s number was on box 29. He slid the box from its nest, put it on the table and unlocked it. He raised the lid slowly, as if something was coiled in there, ready to jump.

  He had come with no preconception, but there was less in the box than he had expected. Furthermore, it looked like the kind of stuff that would be found in a shoebox on the top shelf of a closet, not in a high-security deed box. There were old holiday snapshots of Emily and her husband, an early picture of her father and mother with their names engraved on the gilt frame, several small books of children’s stories with the name Emily Lustig written in a childish hand on the flyleaf of each; there were birth and marriage documents, one or two defunct insurance policies, and a sealed white envelope. Mike opened it.

  Inside was a photograph of ten people, men and women, sitting in two solemn-faced rows, stiff-backed, under a banner embroidered with the initials JZ, and underneath the initials the legend Gründed 1994. The only other item in the envelope was a cheap notebook with one scribbled entry: 17a Scharweber Strasse, Berlin.

  Mike removed most of the articles, apart from the framed picture and the children’s books, and put them in his briefcase. The notebook and the group photograph he put in his inside jacket pocket. There was nothing like being thorough, but he knew the only significant items were the picture and the address in the notebook.

  He locked Emily’s box and slid it back into its nest. He took down his own box, opened it, and put in a bundle of newspapers. He had brought the papers for padding, so the briefcase would look the same going out as it did coming in — not that anyone here would suspect a man like Brett Lewis of doing anything underhanded.

  As he left the depository Mr Conway appeared from behind his glass panel and walked with him to the elevator.

  ‘I hope we continue to be of service to you, Mr Lewis.’

  Mike smiled and nodded.

  ‘I think I can safely say,’ Conway beamed, ‘your property could not be safer anywhere.’

  ‘Thanks for your help,’ Mike said as the doors opened. ‘Good day, Mr Conway.’

  As the elevator plummeted, he reflected that one place safer than Luckham’s he could think of, straight away, was his locker back at UNACO. Nobody, so far as he knew, would ever dare open it without authorization, and the contents, if trivial, were still completely private.

  10

  Philpott had left messages for Sabrina, Mike and C.W. to gather for a meeting at three o’clock. By 2.55 they were all in the UNACO briefing room. C.W. and Mike sat opposite each other. Again Sabrina had taken the seat adjacent to Philpott’s, but this time on the opposite side of the table. Philpott leaned by the window, leafing through computer printouts. As Sabrina sat down he looked at the clock.

  ‘So let’s begin.’ He came and sat at the table. ‘This case is taking on an air of urgency, of which more in a few minutes. First we’ll update. Sabrina, tell us what you’ve gleaned on Emily Selby.’

  Sabrina summarized what she had learned from talking to Emily’s three former colleagues, especially Dilys Craig.

  ‘The death on July 20th, 1993, of Emily’s husband and her father, who were her only family, affected her severely. She had cause to believe that the two men died in suspicious circumstances.’

  Sabrina read an extract of the autopsy report, which indicated both men had suffered trauma not usually associated with drowning cases.

  ‘Moving on from that matter for the moment,’ Sabrina said, ‘I can now tell you I’ve found a connection between Emily Selby and Erika Stramm.’

  She explained how the women were related, and added that in recent times they appeared to have been in regular correspondence.

  ‘What’s known about Emily’s husband?’ Philpott said.

  ‘I dug through the press files and professional directories for information on both men.’ Sabrina took out another sheet. ‘Nothing exceptional on Desmond Selby. He was forty-three, an assistant professor of Eastern Studies at Cornell. He and Emily met in Baghdad when they went there on separate research projects. Selby was Jewish, but like his wife he had no known affiliations to Jewish organizations here or abroad. By all accounts, Desmond Selby was a fine academic and a model citizen. For what it’s worth, Emily believed he was killed because he just happened to be where her father was at the time the executioner or executioners showed up.’

  ‘The old man?’ Philpott said.

  Sabrina found the notes. ‘He was born Johannes Georg Hofmannsthal Stramm,’ she said, ‘born in 1923 in Munich, educated there and in Berlin. In 1941, when he was eighteen, he was ousted by the Nazis, along with several others, from the college where he had been studying. He wasn’t allowed to work and so he tried several times, unsuccessfully, to leave Germany. He was caught in a round-up of Jews in 1942 and was transported to the concentration camp at Buchenwald. He changed identities with a dead inmate, Johannes Lustig, and by various means he managed to survive. When the camp was liberated he applied for permission to travel to the USA and was accepted. He eventually took American citizenship and distinguished himself as a scholar.

  ‘Johannes Lustig was a supporter of the Zionist cause and was present among the spectators when David Ben-Gurion announced the birth of the state of Israel in 1948. He had a doctorate in Hebraic Studies, another in pure philosophy, and he held a professorship of European History at Cornell; he wrote four books about the Russian pogroms and a number of pamphlets on the Holocaust.’

  ‘Was he any kind of agitator?’

  ‘I’ve no evidence of that,’ Sabrina said. ‘He wrote angry letters to the press from time to time, and one or two of his pamphlets came down hard on what he saw as fascist tendencies in certain aspects of US domestic policy. But that was it.’

  Notes were made.

  ‘Your turn, Mike,’ Philpott said.

  Mike gave them a summary of his break-in at the depository. ‘Emily placed high value on simple things,’ he said. ‘The strong-box was full of items with no commercial value. I have to say it was kind of touching.’

  He passed copies of the notebook entry and the group photograph to Sabrina and C.W.

  ‘The address has been checked,’ Philpott said. ‘It’s in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, a racially tense area with a fair bit of crime and sundry inner-city unpleasantness. The address is a high-security apartment, one of those places with no windows, metal-clad doors, alarms and a couple of surveillance cameras. It’s owned by Herschell and Grosz, a large firm of property renters and developers. They won’t say who the tenant is.’

  ‘Any bets it’s Erika Stramm?’ Whitlock said.

  ‘Well, she has no listed home address,’ Philpott said, ‘all we have is an e-mail location.’

  More notes were taken, then Sabrina, Mike and C.W. sat back and looked at Philpott, who obviously had something important to say. Several times in the past few minutes he had centred his tie and shot his cuffs. It was a sign: substantial news was imminent.

  ‘These are details of two recent murders in Germany.’ Philpott handed out information sheets. ‘Karl Sonnemann, sixty-three, a university professor, was killed in Frankfurt. Stefan Fliegel, sixty-two, a businessman, died in Berlin. The names of both these men appear on the list Sabrina found in Emily Selby’s hotel room. So, whatever else that document might be, it’s a hit-list, and the killings have begun.’

  ‘Do we have a line on the killer or killers?’ Mike said.

  ‘In both cases the perpetrator was described as a young man, no older than twenty-five, approximately six feet two inches tall, fair hair, blue eyes…’

  ‘Finding him will be a cinch, then,’ Mike said. ‘A guy like that will really stand out in Germany.’

  ‘He may not be a German,’ Philpott said. ‘A witness who was with Professor Sonnemann said the young man spoke Ger
man with a peculiar accent. She couldn’t be any more specific about it.’

  ‘What’s being done to shield Andreas Wolff?’ Whitlock said. ‘I presume you are making his safety a priority?’

  ‘He has been given an armed guard,’ Philpott said, ‘and there is round-the-clock surveillance on his Tiergarten apartment.’

  Sabrina asked if anything was being done to safeguard the others on the list.

  ‘Not at present,’ Philpott said. ‘The decision not to alert them may be seen as callous, but for the present we are anxious to know what connects these men, and our efforts in that direction might be harmed if we approached them.’

  Sabrina said no more on the point. She wasn’t paid to argue.

  ‘We still have no depth in this picture,’ Philpott said. ‘I want you to go to Morocco, Sabrina. Find out about the man who killed Emily Selby, get hold of everything there is to know. Chances are he didn’t act on his own initiative, so if he was put up to it we want to know who did the putting up.’

  ‘Are we sure Morocco’s where he came from?’ Sabrina said. ‘Most recently, I mean?’

  ‘Mossad local intelligence in Rabat have checked out his movements and they’re sure he was resident in Tetuán. You’ll have a briefing docket before you leave and details of the approximate area of habitation will be in there, with a map.’

  ‘Fine.’

  Philpott turned to Mike. ‘I want you to get inside that secure apartment in Berlin and find out what Erika Stramm is up to.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we maybe do this the other way around?’ Mike said. ‘Me go to Morocco, Sabrina take Germany.’

  ‘Are you displaying chivalrous concern?’ Philpott said.

  ‘Morocco can be very dicey,’ Mike said. ‘I’ve some experience there and — ’

  ‘Thanks for your concern, Mike, but I think I’ll manage,’ Sabrina said coldly.

  ‘My decision to assign Sabrina to Morocco,’ Philpott said, ‘is based on the belief that, as a woman, she won’t be perceived as a threat. More fools them, I might add. By not encountering as much resistance as a man would, she will potentially be the most efficient.’

  Mike shrugged.

  ‘Besides,’ Philpott went on, ‘she won’t be going alone. Lucy Dow will be there, in position, ready to act as cover, diversion, or guide.’

  ‘Why the two of them?’ Mike said.

  ‘Lucy is there anyway, keeping a weather eye on a Sendero Luminoso splinter group hiding out in the area. Lucy knows the territory and customs, she can help Sabrina find her way around. She may even come in handy for back-up.’ Philpott paused. ‘Do you have a problem with that, Mike?’

  ‘None at all,’ Mike snapped.

  ‘So.’ Philpott turned to Sabrina. ‘You will present yourself at the Briefing Suite at 17.30 hours today and they will provide what you need. In Morocco I want you to travel light, look like a typical tourist.’

  Philpott stood, picked up his papers and tamped them on the desk. ‘That’s it. Time to disperse and perform good works. I’ll be waiting for you to report back. Remember, the clock is now running. You must take all necessary steps to evaluate the problem, contain it and neutralize it.’

  ‘Easy for you to say,’ Mike murmured as he walked away from the table.

  He waited outside the briefing room for Sabrina.

  ‘Hey,’ he said as she came out, ‘no hard feelings. I just thought the job in Berlin would be more your style, that’s all.’

  ‘I’ll take my chances with what I’ve been assigned,’ Sabrina said. ‘The way I always do.’

  ‘I didn’t think you wouldn’t. I was trying to be helpful.’

  ‘There’s no need. In fact, I’d take it kindly if you’d smother the impulse to help me any time it comes up.’

  ‘Why?’ Sabrina started to walk away and Mike followed her. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because some offers of help affect me the same way that setbacks do.’

  As she hurried away from him Mike noticed red spots had appeared on her cheeks. It was a sign she was angry. He often made that happen. It was, he decided, one of his more depressing talents.

  Back in the briefing room Philpott talked to C.W. Whitlock about the two men who had died. In spite of extensive background searches by the German police, not a thread of a connection could be found between the victims.

  ‘All they appear to have in common is their killer, and the fact that they are both on the list.’

  Philpott’s years at Scotland Yard had ingrained an old cops’ motto that a lack of evidence was usually the fault of the investigator — until it could be proved there was another cause.

  ‘Two men on a mystery list get mysteriously murdered. There’s a link all right, and if we don’t find it soon there’ll be more dead Germans on our plate.’

  ‘More information is emerging,’ Whitlock said. ‘The danger is that we may start seeing connections that don’t mean anything, similarities that aren’t connections at all. We now know that during the past fifteen years, nine of the men on the list have taken holidays in South America. Eleven are known to have Swiss bank accounts. Then there’s the fact that so many of them are orphans, and several of the others now appear to have been adopted. The gaps and inconsistencies in the German records system don’t help, but I’ll make the most of what we turn up. Rely on that.’

  ‘I already do,’ Philpott said.

  Whitlock knew he would be expected to see connections where others saw none. Philpott believed C.W. had a peculiarly analytical brain which suited him to that kind of task. Whitlock believed Philpott missed the point. He was not especially gifted in the analytical department, but he was extremely patient — to the extent that he would dwell on a problem for days if necessary, familiarizing himself with it, piece by minuscule piece until familiarity equalled transparency and it was solved. Patience was the secret of many kinds of success, but patience was one of the inborn tools people didn’t use much any more. Which, Whitlock thought, was just too bad for people.

  ‘What’s known about the victims?’ he asked Philpott.

  ‘The usual bland stuff. Sonnemann, the professor, had a long, distinguished career as an academic. Only known weak point was for young women, which is almost grounds for canonization these days. The other one, Fliegel, was nearly as respectable, except his sexual enthusiasm was for males. Neither man was ever in trouble with the law. They lived in different parts of Germany and there is no traceable reason to believe they knew each other, or had ever met.’

  ‘Will I be sent copies of the police reports?’

  ‘You should have them within the hour.’

  ‘As soon as I have the paperwork I’ll get out the runes and the tarot pack and see what comes up.’

  Philpott went off to a meeting to discuss the failing credibility of the International Court of Justice. Whitlock crossed the corridor to the UNACO Command Centre and looked into the office of the duty Newsline Monitor. No one was around. For a while he watched the bulletins flash up on the screens, then decided he should be a man and face at least one of his terrors.

  He picked up a phone and dialled the number of his wife’s mobile. Carmen answered at once.

  ‘It’s me,’ he said.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘About last night, and the night before, for that matter…’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘When I tried to apologize, and you turned it into something else both times — ’

  ‘I’m working, C.W. Is there any point to this call?’

  He wondered if she was ever this way with colleagues. Carmen was a consultant paediatrician, established in a good private practice, and putting in a conscience-cleansing ten hours a week in the Emergency Room of a city hospital — ‘the kind listed in blue pages, not yellow pages,’ C.W. would point out to friends, proud of Carmen’s work among poorer people.

  ‘Well?’ she said. ‘What exactly do you want?’

  ‘To say I really am sorry, I suppose.’


  ‘Saying sorry doesn’t cut it.’

  ‘So what do you want from me?’

  ‘What’s the good of you doing anything if I’ve to tell you to do it first?’

  Now he wondered if maybe she was this hard with patients too. Poor kids.

  ‘Carmen, make one thing clear.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you going to let up on me before I’m too old to enjoy making up?’

  ‘Now you’re being flippant.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right,’ he said, feeling his temper rise. ‘And what kind of woman does that make you, sharing your life with somebody as flippant and superficial as I am?’

  He threw down the receiver.

  ‘Trouble?’ a voice said behind him.

  He turned and saw Caroline, the duty Line Monitor for the afternoon.

  ‘I have a habit of walking into knives,’ C.W. told her. ‘Then I try to lay the blame for my carelessness on the knives themselves, if you follow me.’

  ‘Oh, sure,’ Caroline put down her fresh cup of coffee. ‘It doesn’t sound very original, as dumb streaks go.’

  She swiped a smart card across a slot in the drawer under the computer console. The drawer slid open. She took out a big brown envelope.

  ‘This came for you about ten minutes ago.’

  C.W. took it. He pulled back the flap and looked inside. It was from the Berlin police, preliminary investigative reports on the murders of Karl Sonnemann and Stefan Fliegel.

  ‘Work,’ he said, glad of the distraction.

  ‘Work is the only practical consolation for being born, someone great once said. Miguel de Unamuno, if I’m not mistaken,’ said Caroline.

  ‘Thank you, Caroline, you do a lot to push back the boundaries of my ignorance.’

  Whitlock stuck the envelope under his arm and left. As he walked along the passage he repeated the words in his head: Work is the only practical consolation for being born.

  There were times, times like now, when a line like that seemed perfectly apt.

  11

  As Sabrina stepped off the plane at Tangier she felt she was breathing steam. The sun blazed from a cloudless sky, but ten minutes earlier it had rained, and now great pools of water on the tarmac were evaporating, making the air heavy with moisture.