Hour of the Assassins

by Andrew Kaplan

  He lit a cigarette and dropped the match into the remains of the broiled veal and potatoes. He watched the people at the tables in the crowded café. A blonde in a ski sweater descended a winding stairway from the upper floor of the café with a flutter of small movements, as if she were dancing down to meet Fred Astaire for the finale.

  At the next table a stout Swiss or perhaps German businessman, with shiny pink skin, almost bursting out of his suit like a boiled sausage, paused for a moment to glance with satisfaction at his own reflection in one of the ornate wall mirrors, before resuming his greedy attack on a steaming Bernerplatte, piled high with boiled beef and sausages. For a moment Caine wondered what he had done during the war. Then he exhaled the smoke and brought his mind back to the issue.

  The problem was complicated by the fact that he had to be very careful about using official channels. If any of the intelligence services were to get interested in what he was doing, it would queer the pitch for good. The waiter brought a glass of the clear white cherry brandy and Caine took a large sip, feeling the warmth of the brandy wash through his body. He was tired and probably suffering from jet lag, he decided. After all, he had been on the go since he had landed at Zurich’s Kloten Airport late last night.

  Using the William Foster cover, he had checked into the velour-upholstered comfort of the Baur au Lac Hotel. The plush luxury of his lakeside suite was a welcome relief from the cold, driving night rain, and he had gone straight to bed.

  In the morning he strolled out of the hotel, shivering slightly against the winter chill. A steel-gray sky hung like an endless sheet of ice over the lake. After checking the lobby to flush any possible tail, he took a crowded blue-and-white tram on the Bahnhofstrasse. The elegant shops along the street were beautifully dressed with Christmas manger scenes and intricate doll displays. At Gübelin’s a discreet red-and-white sign proclaimed “Fröhliche Weihnachten” over a display of diamond-studded Piaget watches. An exquisite mannequin stood against an Alpine landscape in the window of Grieder’s, wearing a Dior throwaway on sale at a price that made Neiman-Marcus look like a Salvation Army giveaway. Caine hopped off the tram at the stop near the massive stone facade of the Union Bank of Switzerland.

  As a serious young bank official ushered him into the manager’s dark-paneled office, Herr Kröger came from behind his desk and briskly shook Caine’s hand. Kröger was tall and slender, with a thatch of well-groomed white hair. He wore a three-piece Savile Row pinstripe suit and a silk Bond Street tie. He was the genuine gilt-edged article, Caine thought. No matter how you chipped away at him, you would find money.

  Caine opened a numbered account with $5,000 in traveler’s checks, which he countersigned in front of Kröger. Any further instructions from him would be by mail. He would sign his letters with only the account number, reversed on the right margin. Kröger nodded understandingly at what was, for him, a perfectly normal procedure.

  Caine then changed another $5,000 in traveler’s checks into Swiss francs. As they discussed the details of subsequent transactions, Caine found himself thinking wishfully that if he could get into the numbered accounts, he could probably find Mengele right there and then. But of course that was impossible. Still, that was something he had to remember. It was a prime rule of intelligence investigation—perhaps the prime rule: always follow the money.

  He explained to Kröger that he anticipated selling a certain asset for something over a quarter of a million dollars and wanted the money immediately converted into Swiss francs at whatever the current rate was on the day of the transaction. Scenting a commission, Kröger delicately inquired if he might be of some assistance in the sale.

  It was a difficult moment for Caine. Experience had taught him that the world was still a battlefield, that you could trust people or you could survive, but you couldn’t do both. And he was a survivor. Still, he knew that Swiss banks were inviolable. He took the envelope out of his pocket and showed Kröger the stamp.

  “Ingenious,” Kröger remarked.

  “The currency regulations,” Caine began.

  “Of course. That’s why we are here: to deal with the inconveniences of business.”

  “Do you know someone?”

  “Let me see,” Kröger said, and spent a few minutes on the telephone. He replaced the receiver and smiled briefly at Caine. Kröger looked like he wanted to sell him a car, Caine thought.

  “The firm of Beckmann und Schenck is highly recommended. I am told that Herr Beckmann is perhaps the leading stamp dealer in Europe. You’ll find his office on the Uraniastrasse fifty-eight, near the Rudolf Bran Bridge. If you wish, I’ll call and tell him to expect you. Once he has authenticated the stamp,” Kröger said, raising his eyebrows slightly to indicate that a fraud would be unthinkable, “you can deposit the stamp in our vault and we can arrange to deliver the stamp to Beckmann when he has a buyer.”

  “That’s very kind of you.”

  Kröger held up his hand as if to forestall any thanks.

  “Our fee is five percent of the selling price.”

  “Of course,” Caine responded.

  Herr Beckmann was a stocky figure in a gray turtle-neck sweater under a worn tweed blazer. His small deep-set eyes were magnified into owl’s eyes by wire- rimmed glasses perched on his nose. The walls of his spartan office were lined with sheets of brightly colored stamps displayed in glass cases like butterflies. He smiled briefly at Caine and nodded in a perfunctory Prussian bow. But when Caine handed him the envelope and he saw the stamp, he began to blink rapidly. For a moment his eyes, like giant marbles behind the glass lenses, riveted on the stamp with the total concentration of a hawk spying a distant prey.

  “Extraordinary,” he murmured.

  “I take it the stamp meets with your approval,” Caine said softly.

  “There is no question of its authenticity,” Beckmann replied, his Swiss-German accent sibilant in English. “Where did you get it?”

  “From the owner.”

  “Ja, of course,” Beckmann murmured, almost to himself. “Where did he get it, bitte?”

  “At a New York auction in 1968.”

  “Ach, the Teilman auction. But where is the other stamp?”

  “I’m still negotiating for it. I expect to have it within six months.” I wish, I wish, Caine thought. Beckmann began to blink again.

  “I will find a buyer, or else I will buy it myself.”

  “What is it worth?”

  Beckmann opened his hands in a bargaining gesture that might have predated Jacob’s negotiation with Esau over a bowl of soup.

  “The market is down these days and the stamp is by itself. Also, an item of this size is very difficult.”

  “What’s it worth?” Caine repeated.

  There was a long pause while Beckmann calculated. He picked up the stamp again and examined it, like a doctor poking at a patient.

  “I cannot guarantee you more than seven hundred seventy-five thousand francs.” Caine tried to keep his face expressionless as he translated the sum. It was more than $310,000. “Of course,” Beckmann added placatingly, “we may be able to get more. I will do my best for you.”

  “It’s a deal,” Caine replied and put the stamp back in his pocket. Beckmann’s eyes followed the stamp, peering at Caine’s jacket as if he could see the stamp through the fabric. “I shall deposit the stamp at the bank. When you have a cash buyer, you can make the arrangements through Herr Kröger.”

  Caine took a Klein taxi back to the bank and deposited the stamp with Kröger. Then he walked over to Kranzler’s for a late lunch. So now all he had to do was find Mengele, Caine thought, sipping the Kirschwasser. There was nothing to it. All he had to do was get his junior James Bond secret agent kit, throw on his Burberry trench coat, and play a wild hunch. It always worked out in the movies.

  He could start by eliminating Asia and Africa, where a white man stood out like a grain of salt in a pepper shaker, he thought. Except for the Middle East, where the Arabs had a penchant for
German scientists with whom they could share a common dislike of Jews. Of course Mengele wasn’t really a scientist. Still, it was a possibility. He could probably scratch Australia and North America, because the Jewish communities were too large and the climate for notorious Nazis too inhospitable. Europe was almost certainly out, except perhaps Spain. No, even Spain would have been too hot for the Angel of Death, and Mengele wouldn’t have gone east. If he had been picked up by the Communists, they wouldn’t have bothered with the niceties of a public trial. Still, that was something to keep in mind. The Poles and the Russians still wanted Mengele and just might have some information on him. So that left South America at the top of the list, with the Middle East and Eastern Europe as places to be checked for information. According to the Interpol file Mengele was last heard of in Argentina, but that was in the days of Perón and long before the Eichmann snatch. It was hopeless, Caine thought as he motioned the waiter over for the check.

  “Rechnung, bitte,” he said, shaking his head. The son of a bitch could be anywhere. He would have to play it by the book. His first targets would be information sources in the Middle East, Poland, and Germany. Then he could narrow it down to someplace in South America with a greater degree of certainty.

  The Grill bar in the Baur au Lac is the place to be in Zurich. Long ago the action was at the Odeon Café, where Mata Hari danced for the officers and the young Mussolini played billiards; but since the war it’s the Grill. That evening the bar was jammed with laughing businessmen and expensive women flashing jewelry from Meister’s and conversation from the society pages. As Caine looked around, he thought he spotted agents from at least half-a-dozen intelligence services. It was like a spies’ convention, he mused as he sipped a marc. Then he got lucky.

  He saw a powerfully built man sitting at a corner table with a stunning blonde who was sensuously licking the cherry in her cocktail. He recognized Mahmoud Ibn Sallah from the briefing he’d had on the Abu Daud hit.

  Ibn Sallah had dark curly hair and soft brown eyes nestled under long curling lashes. But the soft eyes that made him irresistible to women concealed a brain that could unravel Byzantine plots with the cunning ruthlessness of his Levantine forebears. His dark business suit did not disguise what was still an impressive body. In his youth he had been an Olympic wrestler.

  At the moment Ibn Sallah was pouring champagne for the blonde, and from her reaction he appeared to be mouthing some extravagant courtesy. Caine thought that he looked like a high-class Armenian rug merchant, but in fact Ibn Sallah was the deputy director of the Moukhabarat, the Egyptian secret service.

  As Caine looked around for shields, he wondered what Ibn Sallah was doing in Zurich. He grinned to himself as he thought that there must be more than a few men in the bar who would be wondering the same thing. But then why did anyone come to Zurich? There was an OPEC meeting in Geneva and Ibn Sallah probably stopped over in Zurich to do his banking, whether on his own account or somebody else’s. Whatever else happened, Ibn Sallah wasn’t the sort of man who was planning to retire just on a government pension. As for the blonde, Caine dismissed her. She was almost certainly just window dressing.

  He had spotted two shields. One very dark skinned, leaning against a wall; the other more Semitic-looking, sitting at the bar. They were both beefy, powerful-looking men, like their master. Neither of them were drinking and Caine knew it wasn’t because of anything written in the Koran. He knew them because he was cut from the same cloth. They were professionals. Every few seconds they ran their eyes over the crowd near Ibn Sallah’s table, like cops mentally frisking a suspect.

  Caine finished the marc in a quick swallow. Should he try it? he wondered. A mistake could be fatal, but if it worked it could conceivably save him weeks. If he did it, it would have to be fast. He would have to make it a quick in-and-outer, before they had time to react. If he were still working for the Company, he would be signaling his case officer that he was going into the red zone. He got up and walked over to Ibn Sallah’s table.

  In a way it was an interesting tactical problem. And one that they had never covered at the Farm, because it wasn’t supposed to happen. How do you approach a shielded member of the opposition and let him know that you have nothing more lethal on your mind than setting up a friendly r.d.v., without getting terminated? As he approached the table, Caine staggered slightly, hoping to buy a few seconds by convincing them that he was just a drunk civilian. He timed his approach so that he had to stumble against the table to avoid colliding with a waiter. The drink in his hand sloshed onto the table, startling the blonde.

  “Excuse me, Fraulein,” Caine said, slurring his words slightly and smiling his most ingratiating smile. Annoyed, her eyes blazed at him as Ibn Sallah calmly slid his hands out of sight under the table.

  “Bitte sehr,” she responded tartly.

  “I hope you’ll forgive me,” Caine replied, turning to face the man. He kept his hands out in plain sight, feeling a ripple of fear trickle down his spine like a bead of sweat, anticipating the impact of a silenced slug slamming into his back.

  “Not at all,” Ibn Sallah replied, relaxing his shoulders. He was beginning to buy Caine’s drunk act.

  “It’s important that we talk, monsieur,” Caine replied. At that moment he felt something hard poke into his ribs and knew that the shields had come up. He was boxed in and there was nothing to do but brazen it out.

  “Why is that?” Ibn Sallah asked quietly, his eyes hard and alert. Caine knew that if he couldn’t convince Ibn Sallah now, that they would be sweeping him up with the morning garbage in some back alley off the Münstergasse.

  “Because we’re in the same business and it’s to our mutual advantage,” he replied.

  Ibn Sallah paused, sizing Caine up. Then as if reminding himself of the shields, he nodded confidently.

  “It had better be,” he replied. He raised an eyebrow and the dark-skinned Arab bent over. Ibn Sallah whispered something to him briefly.

  “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Fraulein,” Caine responded, bowing slightly to the blonde, his eyebrow raised in a quizzical appraisal. She smiled back at Caine with a look that was equally appraising and disdainful. Then he and the dark-skinned Arab were walking arm in arm, like old business associates, out of the bar. When they reached the lobby, the Arab released Caine and whispered tonelessly in a heavily accented French,

  “Tomorrow, the boat to Rapperswil.”

  “What time?”

  “Eleven o’clock and, monsieur,” the Arab added with an ominous hiss, “come alone, or else …”

  The Arab turned and walked back toward the bar without finishing the threat. He didn’t have to.

  For a moment Caine considered going back to his room. He was tired and jumpy, and although he had been successful, he knew that he was pushing his luck with Ibn Sallah. He had to be careful. It was when you began cutting corners that you made mistakes. On an. impulse he walked out of the lobby and down to the promenade by the lake.

  The lake was as dark and endless as the sea and he couldn’t see the black water as it lapped tirelessly at the shore. The promenade was deserted as the icy wind off the lake whipped across the darkness. Empty benches were lit by sporadic streetlamps glowing futilely, like the lost sentinels of a dead planet.

  He felt cold and alone and wished he were back in Malibu, lying in front of a crackling fire against the warmth of C.J. Strange how he couldn’t shake her from his thoughts. After all, she was just a pretty little pro with all the morals of a bitch in heat. Still, there was more to her than that, if only he could get at it. Somehow she had left an imprint on his mind, as faint and indelible as the trademark on a pat of butter.

  He looked back at the twinkling lights of the city, climbing up the slopes of the Dolder into the night And behind those lights lived the quiet ordinary lives he had rejected so long ago. But they belonged, all right. And he didn’t belong anywhere. There were times, he thought, when he believed that loneliness was a word invented ju
st for him.

  He began to walk up the Bahnhofstrasse toward the Limmat River. Nearing a church, he heard the faint sounds of voices singing a German carol. He strained his ears and then he realized that they were singing, “Silent Night.” It was Christmas Eve. For a moment it brought back the Christmases of his childhood, the sense of awe in church before the adolescent doubts began, the odds and ends they used to decorate the tree, the colored electric lights strung outside the house. He remembered standing with his mother and piping the carols in his child’s voiçe, all the while dreaming of snow and getting the bicycle that would make life perfect. And now he was plotting a murder this Christmas eve. Still, hadn’t the first Christmas begun with thousands of murders, the Slaughter of the Innocents? Nothing really had changed since Herod’s time, he decided. The innocents were still being slaughtered, only now we are better at it. The only difference was that then it was Herod’s madness and now it was a political matter. The poet Rimbaud was right, he decided. “Now is the hour of the assassins.” He turned away from the church and went back to the hotel.

  Once in his room he got the Bauer automatic out of the Hasselblad and loaded it. Then he called room service and ordered a bottle of Scotch. When the bellboy came with the bottle, he kept his right hand in his pocket, gripped tightly around the Bauer. After the bellboy left, he carefully wedged a chair under the door handle, placed the Bauer under his pillow, and poured himself a drink. It took almost half a bottle before he managed to fall asleep.

  Heavy white clouds full of snow scudded across the sky as Caine boarded the old-fashioned paddle-wheel steamboat to the Rapperswil side of the lake. The boat was crowded and noisy with the sounds of families on their Christmas day outing. He made his way to the promenade on the upper deck, where he had glimpsed the dark-skinned Arab just before boarding. But when he got there, the Arab was gone. He ignored the people around him, remembering the old CTP dictum that if you pay no attention to others, people are unlikely to pay attention to you. Instead he stood at the rail, looking out across the lake.