Talons of the Falcon

by Rebecca York

  Unlike the French connection of the day before, the couple’s ties to the Falcon involved a good deal of personal loyalty.

  Although Gustav’s father had been conscripted into Hitler’s army, he had never supported the dictator. And when a young American Intelligence operative disguised as an S.S. officer had been captured behind German lines, he’d helped the American escape.

  The Falcon always paid his debts. After the war he made a point of finding the man who had saved his life. Like so much of the city, the elder Hofmann’s bakery had been destroyed in the Allied bombings, and his family was destitute. With his private income, Amherst Gordon was able to set the man up in business again.

  But Hofmann had had his pride, too. He would only accept the help in exchange for services he could render. In a sector surrounded by a communist regime, that turned out to be a valuable exchange. The son had continued the family tradition, and he’d been so effective that Gordon had relied heavily on him for years. Berdine was an equal partner in her husband’s covert business. Her enthusiasm came from a hatred of the East German Communists. She had crossed the border just before the wall went up. Her sister and brother-in-law had not been so lucky. They were shot while trying to swim across a canal to freedom.

  Eden was relieved to find that among the couple’s talents was a good command of English, since she didn’t know how to say much more than guten Morgen in German. Over coffee and strudel topped with heavy whipped cream, the foursome discussed their strategy in the kitchen of the living quarters behind the Hofmanns’ shop. Under the table, their Doberman, Fritz, rested his chin on his master’s foot.

  Berdine gave Mark a welcoming smile. “Oberstleutnant Bradley, for months we thought you were dead, until the Falcon told us what happened after your plane crashed last year.”

  Mark shrugged. “One of the risks in this business.”

  Eden knew the casual disclaimer didn’t fool their hosts. Mark’s experience was etched on his face. But she could see more. He was holding himself in tightly, as though he was afraid of losing control. After the devastating session under hypnosis in Ireland, she understood why. And she knew that his doubts were not entirely unfounded. Erlich had done his utmost to implant orders in his patient’s mind. He wanted whatever Mark had left in Berlin, and the man sitting across from her had no way of knowing whether he would deliver it or not.

  “You will want to know what happened when we inquired about the Ludendorft campaign diary at Schultz and Stein.”

  Mark leaned forward. “Herr Gordon told me you called and tried to claim the diary, using my name.”

  “That is correct. The first person I talked to only knew it had been scheduled for the 15 September auction. When I informed him it was private property and insisted on talking to the gentleman you left it with, Herr Glück, I was transferred to a manager who gave me the—what do you call it—run about?”

  “Runaround,” Mark supplied.

  “Yes. They told me Herr Glück was on vacation in the Tyrol.”

  “Do you think they were telling the truth?” Eden questioned.

  “We had the place of business watched. He didn’t go in or out for several days. So our next tack was to send in a prospective buyer for the diaries. When he asked if he could see them, the clerk explained that they were being carefully inspected for authenticity because of the extreme interest in these particular papers. He said they wouldn’t want to have another scandal like the `Hitler Diaries.’”

  Eden sighed. Unfortunately, that was the perfect excuse.

  “But our man was able to get the gentleman into a conversation. It seems that there has been a lot of foreign interest in the Ludendorf material. Even the Russians sent in a `collector’ to have a look. The clerk remembers his name was Aleksei Rozonov.”

  Mark swore under his breath. “Collector, my ass. The Falcon has a file on him this thick.” He gestured with his hands spread a foot apart. “The man’s a KGB officer—and as smart and deadly as they come. If the Russians have sent him in, they know the real value of those diaries. I’m willing to bet they’ll stop at nothing to keep me from getting them.”

  “But how would they know?” Eden asked.

  “That’s what I have to find out,” Mark replied. “I need to get in touch with Glück.” He turned to Gustav. “I suppose it’s not a good idea to make a call from here.”

  “A public telephone cell—I believe you call it a booth—would be best. Let me take you to one.”

  Thirty minutes later, at a safe distance from the bakery, Mark placed the call. Gustav would drive around the block until Mark came out of the phone booth.

  For a moment he debated how to handle this confrontation. Giving his name, he knew, would announce his presence. But from his conversation with Gustav, he suspected that the wrong people already knew he was here.

  “This is Oberstleutnant Bradley,” he informed the receptionist. “May I please speak to Herr Glück?”

  “I am so sorry, Oberstleutnant Bradley. Herr Glück has had an accident.”

  “What happened?”

  “Let me transfer you.”

  The phone clicked and another voice came on the line. “May I verify that I am speaking to Oberstleutnant Bradley.”

  “Yes. This is Colonel Bradley.”

  “So glad you have arrived in Berlin. Would you be able to come in this afternoon?”

  “That won’t be possible. Can you tell me what happened to Herr Glück?”

  “So unfortunate. A bad fall on his holiday in the Tyrol. His neck was broken. I believe he was dead on arrival at hospital.”

  “Too bad.” Mark reached up and automatically hung up the phone. Glück was honest. He’d probably kept the diary out of the Russians’ clutches all this time. But they’d gotten him in the end.

  He stood for a moment, eyes locked on the receiver he’d just replaced. There was a tight feeling in his chest, and his heartbeat had begun to accelerate. There was one more number he had to call. He had no idea who was at the other end, but the digits had popped into his head as he stood there staring at the phone.

  Unhesitatingly, he put in additional coins and dialed 002-72-52. The phone rang and was answered, and then he could hear the call being automatically switched, apparently to another location.

  He heard the whir of a tape, and then a chillingly familiar voice. “Colonel Bradley, so glad that you have arrived in Berlin. I am sorry I am not able to answer the phone personally at the moment. But you will hang on and wait for me.”

  Mark stood gripping the receiver, his knuckles white, his face even whiter. The last person in the world he wanted to talk to was Hans Erlich. But he simply couldn’t hang up.

  There was another click. “Ah, Colonel. Good of you to call. Where are you?”

  “At a phone booth.”

  “And where are you staying?”

  “I won’t tell you.”

  Erlich sighed elaborately. “You are still protecting your organization, I see. But in the end it won’t do you any good. Let us try another tack. Where is your business in the city?”

  Mark tried not to answer. But the effort made the old familiar pressure build up in his head.

  “Come, now, Colonel, you know it won’t do you any good to resist. I repeat, where is your business in the city?”

  Mark’s hand shook. He tried to move the receiver toward the phone. But trying to fight the compulsion was like trying to buck the G-pressure in a rapidly accelerating fighter plane.

  “Colonel Bradley?” The voice was sharp and commanding.

  “At Schultz and Stein.”

  “The dealers in historical papers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then, I will look forward to seeing you there, Colonel.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Aleksei Iliyanovich Rozonov put down the dossier on Col. Mark Bradley and looked thoughtfully across at the Dürer reproduction hanging on the wall of his four-star Berlin hotel room. The picture was of a ramrod-straight Pr
ussian officer. The symbolism made him shake his head. The East Germans were a proud people who insisted on having a hand in shaping their own destiny. Perhaps if they had learned to defer to Moscow where appropriate, he wouldn’t be caught in the middle of a mess that was becoming murkier by the minute.

  The Russian settled his lean frame more comfortably into the easy chair beside the desk. He was just short of six feet in height, with straight, midnight black hair, heavy brows and an unmistakable gleam of intelligence in his deep blue eyes. Most people found his rather stern countenance and firm jawline intimidating, and that was an impression he chose to foster. He had kept his own counsel for years, and perhaps that had contributed to his rapid rise in the KGB. Although few called him a friend, most officers who knew him gave him their grudging respect. He had a record of getting results where others had failed. Now he had been summoned to Berlin to try to make the best of a bad situation. Not many would have relished the task. But he took a certain grim amusement in having been recommended for the job.

  The dossier on Bradley was as complete as Soviet information sources could make it. Yet there were intriguing gaps. Although there had been considerable effort to conceal the facts, the man had almost a regular pattern of disappearing from his assigned duty stations and then turning up, sometimes months later, as though he’d simply stepped out to lunch.

  He picked up a pencil and twirled it between his long fingers. Soviet Intelligence hadn’t even been aware of the man’s activities until he was assigned to the Orion project. At that time Bradley had been tagged for heavy surveillance. Though he’d been quite proficient on his job as consulting engineer and properly circumspect in his Intelligence-gathering activities, it had become clear that he was interested in more than he needed to know. In other words, he was working for somebody besides the U.S. Air Force.

  As Aleksei looked at the file now, he had a good idea who it was. But he had decided to keep that knowledge to himself for the moment.

  All of that background information should have been of no importance now. The KGB had blown up Bradley’s plane. But a few months ago the colonel had come back from the dead, compliments of a certain megalomaniac named Hans Erlich. And Moscow had started scrambling for explanations.

  The pencil between Aleksei’s fingers snapped. Despite Erlich’s obvious talents, the East Germans were playing out of their league again. When would they learn that running half-baked operations behind the KGB’s back could only lead to retribution?

  When Bradley turned up alive, after all, Moscow had no option but to mount a cleanup operation that would have been worthy of a major oil spill in the Persian Gulf. There was the matter of stealing Bradley’s air force medical records so the Americans wouldn’t be sure they had the right man, planting an operative at Pine Island, and now this showdown in Berlin.

  He himself had just been called on to the case. Maybe that was the only lucky thing about this whole mess. He was in an excellent position to take care of a very tricky problem—with a minimum of damage.

  * * *

  IT TOOK ALL OF Mark’s efforts to go calmly through the motions of briefing Gustav and Berdine about the developing situation at Shultz and Stein. But he knew as Eden watched his tense features that she wasn’t attributing his distress to Herr Glück’s untimely death.

  Mark would have preferred to remain sitting around the kitchen table drinking Gustav’s dark German beer and munching from the platter of ham sandwiches and pickles Berdine had set out. But Eden pointed out that they had traveled most of the night before and needed a rest. The moment she got him alone in their tiny room over the bakery, however, it was apparent that she had anything but rest on her mind.

  “All right, what happened when you made that phone call?”

  He turned his back and began to unbutton his shirt. “You were sitting at the table. Weren’t you listening?”

  “Yes, I was listening. But I was also watching your face. You might be able to hide something from them, but I know you too well. Whatever happened this afternoon in that phone booth has shaken you down to your toes.”

  “Get off my back!” he exploded. “When I agreed to bring you along on this trip, I must have been crazy.”

  Eden winced. His harsh words stung as though he had slapped her in the face. If she hadn’t understood what was motivating him, she would have turned away. Instead, she held her ground, aware that Mark was using anger as a defense. Well, let him; she’d fuel him until she cut through to what was really bothering him. “It’s being back in Berlin, isn’t it?” she tried.

  His jaw was rigid. “No.”

  “All right then, you must be afraid that you don’t have what it takes to complete this assignment.”

  He whirled and grasped her shoulders, his fingers digging into the delicate flesh. “Don’t you ever say that to me again,” he threatened, his voice like a pitchfork grating across cement. At the same time, he gave her several rough shakes.

  “It might be more effective if you grabbed me around the throat. Then I wouldn’t be able to talk.”

  His eyes darted to her neck where the faint marks of his fingers still lingered. “Lord,” he whispered. This time it was half apology, half a cry for help.

  “Mark, it’s all right. I understand.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Then tell me.” There was still no reply. Tentatively Eden reached out and touched his cheek. “Mark, I’ve been to hell with you and back. Surely you know you can trust me now.”

  Despite her words, he still had to fight the impulse to turn away. In that phone booth his worst fears had been confirmed. He felt like a prize marlin on the end of a line. The hook was buried deep in his head. And though he could put up a fight, the outcome was almost certain. Hans Erlich was going to reel him in. How could you talk about something like that? he wondered. Yet at the same time, he had come to realize that if anyone could wrench that hook out of his psyche, it was Eden Sommers.

  She waited, watching the signs of an inner struggle.

  “All right,” he finally conceded. “See what you can do with this. After I made that call to Schultz and Stein, there was another number that suddenly flashed into my mind.”

  “002-72-52?”

  For a moment his mind spun crazily. Was this some nightmare where he was going to wake up and find that Eden had been working for Erlich all along?

  She saw the panic and anger on his face. “Mark, don’t think that of me.” The plea was the same one he had used when she had come to his room at the Aviary and then been afraid he was repulsed by what Marshall had done to her.

  He recognized his own words, and some of the tension went out of his rigid body.

  “At Pine Island,” she continued, “when I took you back to the plane crash, you recited that number just before you told me you couldn’t remember anything else. And then in Ireland when I hypnotized you into thinking I was Erlich, you said it again. But I wasn’t in any shape then to realize its importance.”

  Comprehension wrinkled his brow. “It was when I was strangling you, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. But I won’t let you keep blaming yourself for that. What matters is beating this thing—together.”

  “You mean `if’ we can beat it.”

  “We will.” She looked around the tiny room. The high double bed, chest and armoire had left no space for a chair. “We might as well make ourselves comfortable,” she observed, propping up pillows against the headboard and sitting down on the bed in an effort to dispel some of the tension.

  Mark followed her lead. “I thought getting in bed with your patient during a therapy session was against the guidelines of the American Psychological Association,” he remarked.

  “There aren’t any guidelines to deal with something like this.”

  He nodded, sobering again.

  “Okay, quit stalling. What’s the significance of that number?”

  “It’s a local phone number. But I’m sure it switches to a microwave link that go
es across the border to East Germany.”

  “You called it?”

  “Yes. Erlich answered.”

  “But how...?”

  “He had an answering machine set up just for me. But within two minutes he was on the line himself. God, I tried to hang up, but my fingers were locked around the receiver as though I had rigor mortis.”

  His fingers had gone rigid at the memory, and Eden reached out to stroke them. “What happened?”

  He briefly summarized the conversation. “I couldn’t resist him. He still has me in his power.”

  “That isn’t entirely true.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Think about it. You didn’t give away anything about Orion. You didn’t give me away, or jeopardize the Falcon’s contacts in Berlin.”

  “But I told him about Schultz and Stein!” His self-accusation stabbed the air. “All Erlich has to do is make a few phone calls and he’ll figure out what’s going on over there.”

  “Then we’ll be ready for him.”

  “How?” The question was edged with despair.

  Eden realized suddenly that this was match point. If she couldn’t convince Mark to believe in himself now, the game was lost. “We’ll fight Erlich with his own weapons. Mark, you resisted him in almost every way. But he had you for so long and in so much pain, that you couldn’t hold out on every front. However, your basic integrity has remained intact. You wouldn’t be upset about any of this if that weren’t the case.”

  A glimmer of hope kindled in his dark eyes. “What are you getting at?”

  “Another posthypnotic suggestion—this time from me, not him. Remember, you didn’t give away anything about the Orion project. We’ll use that resistance to negate any power Erlich still has over you.”

  He felt like a drowning man who suddenly sees a life preserver bobbing in the water. “Do you really think it will work?”

  “Yes.” Her voice rang with confidence. God, I pray it does.

  “Then when are we going to try it?”