Time of Reckoning

by Walter Wager

  “What’s the file?”

  “Crash Dive,” Merlin replied.

  “Just a second… Right. You wanted all print-outs on the Martians.”

  “Anything at all.”

  “That’s about all this is.”

  Matron Krondorf, who didn’t weigh an ounce over 180 and was all muscle, coughed and stopped outside the cell. “They called her The Bitch of Belsen, ”she recalled in the tones you’d use to discuss an obscure Egyptian pharaoh. “There was talk of setting dogs on prisoners, and lampshades made of human skin.”

  Beller sniffed importantly, looked splendid in his uniform and waved his briefcase at the cell door.

  “At once, Herr Inspektor,” said the intimidated matron.

  “Falkenhausen. One of your Martians is a woman named Marta Falkenhausen…age twenty-six.”

  “Spare me the urinalysis,” Merlin interrupted. “I know about her kidney stones. What else?”

  “Her father was a war criminal, S.S. officer. Sigmund Falkenhausen. Died on Sunday—trying to escape from prison.”

  Merlin sensed something.

  “Where?”

  “Gillenstein near Nürnberg. Old castle for bad types.”

  The matron shook her finger at Inga Diessen twice before she remembered that this gesture might be misconstrued as an old-fashioned threat. It was against the rules to intimidate an inmate, and Matron Krondorf always obeyed the rules. That was why she wouldn’t leave Frau Diessen alone with any man—even the inspector.

  “We have reason to believe that the death of Martin Simon may not have been an accident,” Beller repeated. “He was a witness against you and others in 1946, and if you will cooperate now—”

  “Answer the inspector,” ordered the matron, who had no idea that Martin Simon had just sold his barbershop in San Diego and was living in retirement within sight of the Pacific.

  Ignoring hunches was something Merlin had learned not to do.

  “What happened?” he asked as he looked around for an ashtray.

  “Rope apparently broke, and so did his neck. They found him floating face down in the moat.”

  Apparently.

  “Probably nothing to do with your problem,” guessed the man in the “mail room.”

  Probably.

  “I have no information about that dirty little Jew-liar,” Inga Diessen said in a hoarse, unpleasant voice. “I’m glad that he’s dead, and I’m sorry I didn’t finish him off myself. I never did one-tenth of the things he said, never!”

  “There were other witnesses,” Beller noted.

  “All filthy Zionist Red liars!”

  Merlin tapped off the ash into the wastebasket.

  “Anything else?”

  “Hard to say,” answered the man in Bonn. “Sigmund Falkenhausen wasn’t the only war criminal to die in prison this month, you know. I keep the Trash Bin file, routine stuff on that crowd. There was an S.S. officer named Berchtold—Ravensbrück creep—who kicked off in Frankfurt just a couple of days before.”

  “Cause of death?”

  “Would you believe a heart attack?”

  Merlin wouldn’t. Something strange was going on. He couldn’t name it yet, but he could feel it.

  “I don’t think it means anything,” judged the “mail room” agent in Bonn. “Got to be careful to avoid going paranoid about these funny coincidences.”

  What was so funny?

  Beller could see that he’d have only a single chance, just a couple of seconds. He was alert, ready to strike. He’d brought the weapon originally planned for Sturmbannführer Falkenhausen, the gas device he’d loaded so carefully in the medical examiner’s lab in Manhattan after midnight. He’d never been able to test it on humans, but there had been a caged rat. Now he remembered how well and how swiftly the cyanide had slain the rodent, and he felt confident that it would take care of The Bitch.

  “Please note in the inmate’s records that she has refused to cooperate with an important investigation,” Beller said, signaling that the interview was finished.

  The weapon was highly recommended. According to the Special Forces intelligence experts, KGB hit men had slain two anti-Soviet Ukrainian exiles in Frankfurt with this same type of gun.

  “I certainly will,” promised the matron, and she turned to open the cell door.

  That was it—his only chance.

  Beller whipped out the fountain-pen-that-was-really-a-gas-gun, thrust it right under Inga Diessen’s nose and squeezed the trigger. The cyanide struck at once, and she was reeling as he officiously hustled the matron out and slammed the cell door behind them.

  The Bitch was dying—swiftly.

  “Any others?” Merlin asked.

  “Yeah—guy up in Hamburg. Dachau grad. Yeah, in eleven days we’ve got three stiffs.”

  Four.

  Merlin wouldn’t hear about Inga Diessen’s demise for nearly three days, but that hardly counted. He was a man who played hunches. Nine times out of ten—well, seven out of ten—he was right. Now he was restless and tired of waiting, so he guessed that these deaths were part of a pattern.

  He was right.

  He also thought that these murders were the work of the Martians, and if he could find the pattern and discern the plan he might track them down.

  He was wrong.

  He didn’t suspect that one avenging survivor of the camps was carrying out a brilliant and psychotic crusade, but that didn’t matter. Dr. Ernest Beller was suddenly in danger, for Merlin was a master tracker.

  The hunt was on.

  22

  “I feel funny in this outfit,” Angelo Cavaliere said as the brown Ford moved toward Nürnberg.

  “You don’t look funny,” Merlin replied.

  They were both in U.S. Army uniforms, and the car was painted with American military insignia.

  “Why do I have to drive?”

  “Because you’re the junior officer,” Merlin explained between puffs on the cigar.

  Merlin’s shoulders were adorned with the gold leaves of a major, while his companion’s tunic carried the bars of a second lieutenant.

  “And why am I the junior officer?”

  “Because I’m taller. Don’t you ever go to the movies? The taller guy is always the senior officer, and better-looking.”

  “Shit,” complained the man behind the wheel. “When I was in the army I was a goddam captain,” he added as he accelerated to pass a bright yellow VW. “Why was I demoted to second john?”

  “Filthy language. Captains don’t say ‘shit,’ kid.”

  “I knew plenty who did,” he argued.

  “Not in my army. Maybe in the U.S. Army, but not mine. We’re a classier outfit… Hey, off to the right. That’s the big stadium where Adolf the Asshole used to hold his big rallies. Take a look.”

  The driver sneaked a swift glance, flicked his eyes back to the highway.

  “Where’d you get these uniforms and the car?” he asked.

  “You want me to drive?”

  “Bet the goddam army doesn’t know about it.”

  Merlin didn’t bother to answer. It was hardly rare for CIA personnel to operate in military uniforms.

  “I was an air force colonel once,” he reminisced.

  “Not a real one. I was a real captain… Say, you know anybody in Nürnberg?”

  Merlin shook his head, dropped some ash out the window in vicious defiance of West German regulations against littering. “I used to,” he answered, “but he had an accident.”

  “That figures.” No one could dispute that there was a remarkable rate of attrition among the people Merlin knew—even casual acquaintances.

  The center of the city loomed ahead now.

  “I wasn’t supposed to take this deal,” Cavaliere grumbled. “I was set to go on leave. They had Ken Kaufman set for this number, but he got hurt.”

  “I asked for you, Angie, ’cause you’re the best.”

  “Horse shit.”

  It was difficult to believe that
a Phi Beta Kappa from Holy Cross would speak this way.

  “What happened to Ken?”

  “He was stomped by an NBC crew in the Senate Office Building. They were charging down the hall to catch some admiral who’d been testifying about how the Sovs have more toothpicks or nail files than we do, and Ken was in the way. Out-and-out case of hit-and-run. Those NBC crews are mean. We’re retaliating, of course. We’re not going to tap their phones anymore.”

  “Fair is fair.”

  “Not really,” Cavaliere said frankly. “I used to think so before I joined this circus, but not anymore.”

  The traffic was heavy, confirming West Germany’s wonderful economic boom.

  “Sir,” Merlin told him. “Second johns say ‘sir’ to majors.”

  “Major Knowlton—right?”

  “You got it. And what’s your name, lieutenant?”

  “Bonomi, John G. You want me to sing out my goddam serial number?”

  “I think I prefer your Irving Berlin medley.”

  The man behind the wheel cleared his throat. “There’s no business like show—”

  “Let’s hear the serial number,” Merlin interrupted. “Say, did you ever hear the joke about the seven-hundred-pound lady gorilla in heat in the Central Park Zoo?”

  “I told you that joke in Algiers eight months ago. Christ, how long has it been since we met? Three years? Four?”

  “Long time. Why?”

  A traffic light stopped them, and Cavaliere turned to look at the man beside him. “Four goddam years, and I don’t even know your real name. It was Kraft—Gilman Kraft—in Algiers. In Tokyo it was St. John—something St. John—you were a liquor dealer. Diamant—Linc Diamant—in Athens. Four goddam years, and I don’t know your real name.”

  “I like you, Angie, so I’ll tell you the secret.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t have a real name.”

  There was no point in getting angry with Merlin, so Cavaliere turned on the radio and listened to some women called The Silver Convention chant a vigorous invitation to “boogie” with dedicated disco delight. The two men didn’t speak until they reached Schloss Gillenstein.

  “You think these Krauts are going to buy this story?” Cavaliere asked as he turned off the engine.

  “They don’t have to. We’re giving it away.”

  Ever since Attila the Hun and his crowd speared, spit and slashed their way across Central Europe, Germans have always treated military men with respect. This was an early form of preventive medicine, since it was soon and widely noted that individuals who were less than deferential ran up major medical and dental bills and also tended to die young. The Germans had a lot of practice fighting with other tribes and nations and with each other, doing so well that their Thirty Years’ War between 1618 and 1648 is regarded by historians as a prime example of moronic religious butchery. There were some swell battles with the Swedes and the Spaniards and the French, which proved so popular that the Germans took on the French four or five times more during the next three centuries. The Germans developed a genuine talent for weaponry, military organization, rousing slogans and splendid discipline. As any of the many fine and peace-loving Germans will confirm, it is a goddam lie that war used to be their country’s national sport. It was always a science, with great-looking uniforms. Germany has given the world some of the most important scientists, including Count von Zeppelin; Heinz Zipper; that Gutenberg fellow who invented movable type; and Albert Einstein, who invented the movable physicist—moving himself right out of the Fatherland because the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton seemed more promising than becoming a bar of soap.

  Anyway, the prison guard who escorted the two American officers to the warden’s office was very deferential. Warden Sauer wasn’t deferential because he hadn’t quite gotten over the notion of Yankees as “occupation forces,” but he was polite and courteous.

  “Sauer,” he introduced himself briskly.

  “Major Perry Knowlton, and this is Loo-tenant John Bonomi. U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division, suh.”

  Merlin put just a touch of a southern spin on the “suh.” It was real neat.

  “There was a call from the federal police in Bonn, major. I’ve been expecting you.”

  Merlin gave him an excellent imitation of a sincere smile, one so good that even Angie Cavaliere was impressed.

  “Like to show you our I.D., suh. Army regulations.”

  The warden almost snapped to attention.

  He understood regulations.

  “Certainly,” he beamed, and studied the expertly forged cards. “Would you like some coffee—or tea?”

  “Mah-ty kind of you, suh. Been one helluva drive, if you’ll pah-don mah French.”

  Cavaliere hoped that Merlin wouldn’t overdo it, remembering his tendency toward excess. The impostors sat down, and Sauer ordered the coffee.

  “It’s the Falkenhausen matter, I understand,” he said a moment later.

  “Falkenhausen, Sigmund. Former colonel,” Merlin chanted in his best military style.

  “Not my favorite inmate,” Sauer confided. “Don’t quote me on that in your report, major.”

  The warden wanted to let these Americans know that he was no baby. He’d been around, and he was aware that army CID types always made reports—written reports in quadruplicate—on such investigations. Peter Sauer didn’t want his personal views on that savage in anybody’s official files—in quadruplicate.

  “Course not,” Merlin pledged. “Bad apple, huh?”

  “Terribly difficult. No one ever came to see him, you know, not even his family. Until the week before he died, Falkenhausen hadn’t had a visitor in seven years. I looked it up.”

  He tapped the file on his desk in his best bureaucratic manner. Let the Americans know that Peter Sauer went by the book too.

  “There were two in the last five days of his life,” Sauer continued crisply. “Our doctor says that he fell to his death in the small hours of Monday morning. He was found floating in the moat, drowned.”

  “Great moat you got.”

  “Thank you, major. It’s quite historic. I suppose you want to know about the two visitors.”

  “Youah readin’ mah mind, suh. Get this down, loo-tenant.”

  Cavaliere clicked open his ballpoint, prepared to take notes on the pad fixed to his clipboard. The coffee arrived at that point, interrupting the conversation for more than a minute. There was a whole number with sugar and cream and dumb small talk that filled a good eighty seconds.

  Merlin didn’t press. He waited for Sauer to resume his recitation.

  “On the previous Thursday morning, shortly before noon, a British journalist named Geoffrey Donald Cuthbert sat in the chair that you occupy now. He was on assignment for the Manchester Guardian. I had received a letter requesting cooperation. It was signed by…ah, here it is—Mervyn Nashby, features editor. Requested an interview with Falkenhausen.”

  “Ah see.”

  “You may, if you wish. Take a look.”

  Merlin scanned the letter, sat back and sipped at the delicious black coffee. “Thank you, suh. Now how much time did this Cuthbert spend with youah prisoner?”

  “He didn’t. Falkenhausen’s visiting privileges had been suspended two days earlier for violating regulations. He’d assaulted a member of my staff.”

  “Bad apple. Gettin’ all this, Bonomi?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Would you like more sugar, major?”

  “No, suh. Just more talk.”

  Sauer added another lump to his own cup, continued.

  “Herr Cuthbert was disappointed, but I could not bend the regulations. Rules are rules, nicht wahr?”

  “Damn right. So he left?”

  “In a gray BMW, I believe. I saw his car from my window. Then on Sunday a priest came—when I was at noon mass. A guard captain—well, the father persuaded him to let him see Falkenhausen on some family matter for ten minutes. The inmate was in
good health and secure in his cell when the priest left. The captain has been reprimanded, of course. I’m as religious as the next man, but I can’t brook exceptions to the rules. We’re not running a kindergarten here, major.”

  Merlin put down his cup. “Noticed how sharp and disciplined your men are, warden. Sort of thing a military man spots raht off the bat,” he commended.

  “We are still investigating how Falkenhausen got the nylon rope that he used for his escape effort.”

  Merlin lit a cigar, offered another to Sauer, who explained that he no longer smoked.

  “S’pose his friends provided that rope, huh?”

  Sauer’s thin lips compressed even tighter. “I hope that I don’t have any friends like that, major. The rope had been tampered with—very cleverly. Whoever provided it wanted Sigmund Falkenhausen to die.”

  Merlin wasn’t half as good a thespian as Ernest Beller, but he could handle small parts adequately. He was best at little bits of “business.”

  “Mercy, mercy—what a way to go! Think it could have been that fellah in the priest suit?”

  The American was no idiot. Sauer had been wondering whether the “father” was legitimate, decided that he probably was.

  “We are checking into that situation, major. Our records show that Father Johann Tesbach came from Berlin, and we’re looking for him now. Thus far there is no reason to suspect him of any impropriety.”

  Merlin stood up abruptly, thrust out his hand manfully. “Wanna thank you, warden. ’Preciate your fine cooperation. Your folks in Bonn’ll get copies of ouah report, a’course.”

  Sauer wanted to inquire as to just what this investigation was all about, but he wouldn’t show that sort of weakness. He walked his visitors to the outer office, watched a guard escort them down the corridor out of sight.

  “You on duty the Sunday morning that the priest came?” Merlin asked casually at the drawbridge.

  The guard nodded.