The Berlin Conspiracy

by Tom Gabbay

  I didn’t see how Harvey could pass it up.

  A buzz of excitement ran through the crowd and the ground started to vibrate with the drone of police motorcycles—a distant rumble at first, like rolling thunder, then closer and stronger until you could feel the vibrations under your feet and in the pit of your stomach. Then, drifting in from the west, the muffled chorus of ten thousand voices chanting “KEN-NE-DY … KEN-NE-DY!” building in intensity and growing louder as a wave of unbridled fervor worked its way up the avenue ahead of the motorcade.

  I couldn’t see a damn thing, and before I knew it I was hanging off a traffic light, craning my neck for a view of the approaching cortege. In the crisp, clear June air, the scene played out in full Technicolor glory, as if Berlin had been transported from its dull, black-and-white existence to the gates of the Emerald City. The lead car—Stars and Stripes flying on the right fender, the red, black, and gold of the German standard on the left—was a half mile away, close enough that you could see the pandemonium it was carrying with it. People were running along the sidewalk as the open limousine passed, trying to get ahead of the procession and join the crowd again, swelling the number of spectators to the bursting point.

  I could see Kennedy now—standing in the back of his car, a wide grin on his tanned face, hair blowing in a gentle wind as he waved to the countless faces calling out, even screaming, his name. As glamorous and charismatic as he was, I don’t think the people lining that avenue were cheering the man. They didn’t know the man. What they knew was his youth, his energy, and his inspiring, sometimes electrifying words. They were cheering the promise that he offered for the future.

  You only had to look at Adenauer, standing on the other side of the car, to see what it was all about. The German leader looked stunned, as if he’d been ambushed by his own people. He stood there, stiff and grim-faced, offering a halfhearted salute while he wondered, in God’s name, when he would be able to sit down. He had served his country as head of state for fourteen years and now he was old and tired. He was the past and his people desperately wanted to look forward. Maybe that’s what Willy Brandt was thinking as he stood between the president and the chancellor. Roughly Kennedy’s age, the mayor seemed satisfied, and a bit bemused, by his city’s unrestrained welcome.

  Twenty white-jacketed motorcycle cops escorted the president, ten on each side of the sleek Lincoln Continental. Eight gray-suited Secret Service men jogged alongside, two stood on the rear bumper, and a whole carload followed, along with a couple of buses for aides and the press. The convoy was proceeding so slowly and Kennedy was so completely exposed that the thought crossed my mind that it actually wouldn’t be a bad kill zone. I took a quick look around and saw that the only perch a sniper could use on this route would be a tree, and being up a tree with a rifle wouldn’t give you a high degree of confidence in your shot, and even less in your escape route. But on a different road, one surrounded by buildings …

  When I turned back to watch the motorcade pass, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, some activity on the sidewalk—a quick flash of movement followed by a figure streaking toward the car, his right arm extended …

  “Jesus Christ …” I whispered aloud when I realized it was Horst making the dash across the concrete. He headed straight for Kennedy, weaving successfully between two motorcycles, then giving a Secret Service agent the two-step shuffle and ducking under his arm. He pressed on, calling out what looked like “Mr. President! … Mr. President!!” as he shot forward, his outstretched arm pointing at the president’s midsection. Kennedy, who had been waving to the other side of the road, turned back toward Horst, looked at his hand, then reached out to shake it.

  The crowd went wild, releasing a colossal cheer into the atmosphere as the president leaned over to shout something in my crazy friend’s ear. Horst released Kennedy’s hand, then stood there in the street a moment, watching the car move away. A Secret Service agent stepped up and gently led him back into the crowd. Horst acknowledged the applause he was getting with a wave of his hand, then he was swallowed up by the masses.

  It opened the floodgates. Two middle-aged women rushed the president next. Four agents pushed forward to hold them back, but Kennedy, who was taking great pleasure in this unbridled adulation, leaned out of the car so far that it looked for a moment like he might fall out. Brandt grinned and grabbed the president’s jacket, holding him in the car while he reached his hand out to the ladies. No sooner were the ladies ushered away than a man carrying a young boy on his shoulders ran forward to touch the hand, then a man in sunglasses, and a woman dragging a young girl, and so on….

  “Quite a welcome,” I said to Horst once I’d tracked him down and separated him from a gaggle of admirers.

  “I should say so,” he beamed. “People will remember this day for as long as they live.” We’d found a quiet street that would take us most of the way down to Rudolf-Wilde Platz. It was pushing eleven o’clock, when we needed to check in, so I set a healthy pace.

  “What did he say to you?” I asked.

  Horst grinned broadly, paused a beat for dramatic effect. “He has told me that in his three days in Germany, I’m the only one who has broken out of the crowd!”

  It was a badge of honor for Horst, and why not? I couldn’t think of a better compliment than that one.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “Mr. Teller, to check in,” Horst whispered.

  “Could you repeat it, please?” The pretty young receptionist was doing her best to deal with the morning’s chaos. She leaned across the counter in order to catch Horst’s words the second time around.

  “Mr. Teller,” he repeated softly. The girl cocked her head and gave him a quizzical look.

  “I’m sorry … ?”

  I had coached Horst to keep his voice down so that no one would pick up his accent, but the din in the lobby was making it impossible for the poor girl to hear him at all. There was nothing I could do about it, though. I was in the middle of my zombie act. After a third attempt Horst finally pushed my passport across the counter, open to the attached sheet with the reservation number typed on it. The girl looked at the paper briefly, then turned to the photo page.

  “But you are not Mr. Teller,” she observed.

  “That’s right,” Horst answered, gesturing toward me as we had rehearsed. “Mr. Teller is my employer, who has asked me to check in for him.” I could feel her glance over at me even though I was facing into the lobby. I wanted to make it easy for the spotters who were bound to be hanging around to see me, hoping they’d assume that Horst’s back belonged to Chase. It helped that the place was so chaotic.

  I couldn’t help speculating about who was in the game with us. The man hiding behind the newspaper was the obvious choice, but good operatives don’t make obvious choices. It was more likely to be the skinny lady with the barking poodle on her lap or the busy young bellhop. It didn’t really matter. Even if they’d been wearing a sign across their back saying SPY, it wouldn’t have changed anything.

  The receptionist checked her reservation book, found my name, and turned her attention back to Horst. “I must have Mr. Teller’s signature on the registration card,” she said, pushing a pen and a three-by-four index card across the counter.

  “Yes, of course,” Horst nodded, relaxing into his role once he realized that she wasn’t going to give him a hard time. “I’ll have him sign it.” He ambled over, waited for the girl to look away, then quickly forged my signature on the card, as I’d shown him. It was far from perfect, but I couldn’t very well be seen signing autographs when I was supposed to be riding a Cosmic Cocktail.

  “So far, it’s so good,” Horst whispered.

  “If you say another word, I’m gonna stab you in the eye with that pen,” I whispered back. “Hurry up and get the key.”

  He nodded and returned to the desk, where the girl was already involved with her next customer, an obese gentleman wearing a tweed jacket over a sweater vest with a raincoat slung over his
arm. He was sweating profusely and I wondered why anyone would dress like that on a day like this, and then I realized that he was English. He claimed to have a reservation, she claimed he didn’t, and he was ready to fight the war all over again if he didn’t get a room. Horst stood back and waited patiently while I started to boil over. I wanted to pummel both of them. Finally, after running out of steam, the jumbo Brit went away angry and Horst stepped up to the counter. He handed the receptionist the signed registration card.

  “Yes, Mr. Teller’s room,” she sighed, sounding a bit frazzled now. Retrieving a key from the board, she handed it to Horst, along with the piece of paper with our confirmation number. “Room 417,” she said, and I was starting to feel like we were gonna make it through phase one. Then the bottom dropped out.

  “Mr. Teller was expected some time ago,” she scolded. “We were told it was essential to have his room ready by eight o’clock.”

  “We were detained,” Horst explained offhandedly. “I apologize.” He clearly didn’t get the implication of her statement, but I did. The implication was that we were fucked. Completely and utterly fucked …

  DAMN!

  If they’d been watching the lobby at eight o’clock, they knew Chase was missing in action. How could I be so fucking dense?! I had even wondered what he was supposed to be doing with the spare time! Why didn’t I check it with the hotel?!

  What would the move be? Damage control, that’s what. But how? A disposal team waiting in room 417? Whether they aborted or not, they needed to make me disappear.

  But something didn’t fit. … I hadn’t checked with the hotel because the reservation sheet attached to my passport had read “11 A.M. check-in.” Why would it say that if Chase was supposed to check in at eight?

  Jesus Christ, I was an idiot. … I looked at the clock behind the reception counter: 11:04. I needed that fucking password, like now! The girl was asking Horst if we had any luggage.

  “Just this,” he replied, holding the black briefcase up for her to see.

  “The lift is to your right,” she said, ready to move on to the next person in line. Horst thanked her and stepped away, forgetting to do the one thing I had told him not to forget. But my drug act didn’t matter anymore—if anyone had been waiting for Chase, they’d be long gone by now, so I stepped up to the desk, pushed a startled customer aside with enough force that he wouldn’t ask questions, and smiled at the receptionist.

  “Could you check messages for room 417?” She froze, startled at first, then angry. “If you could wait—”

  I couldn’t wait, so I jumped the counter and checked the box. Empty. I hopped back over, telling the startled girl, “Nope, no messages!” as I walked away.

  There was no time to explain to Horst, so I grabbed the room key and the briefcase from him. “Stay here,” I said, then headed for the elevators, elbowing my way through the crowd.

  “Why have you blown our cover?” he fretted, following in my wake.

  “Forget it,” I said curtly. “Just wait for me down here.” The elevators were mobbed with people, so I went for the stairs. Horst stayed with me as I took the steps two at a time.

  “What has happened?” he puffed when we hit the top floor.

  “The ‘ll A.M. check-in’ had nothing to do with the hotel. …” I said, trying to figure out which direction the room was in. “Chase is supposed to check in on the radio at eleven!”

  He looked at his watch.

  “Don’t say it, Horst!” I barked.

  “So then we must find the password….”

  “That’s right,” I said, trying to sound calm even though my heart was racing and I was gulping air. “We need the password.” I took a deep breath and had a last shot at getting rid of Horst. “I’m gonna check the room out. … You head back to the lobby. There’s a lady with a poodle in her lap down there. … She’s been watching us.”

  His look said he wasn’t buying it, but I’d committed to the story. “Watch her,” I said. “If she leaves the lobby, stay with her.”

  “A lady with a poodle?” he said skeptically. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

  “What about—?”

  “For Christ’s sake, Horst, do what I tell you!”

  It did the trick. He hesitated but he started back down the stairs, tail between his legs. It was for his own good. If there were people waiting for me, they wouldn’t know about Horst unless we walked in together. Anyway, his job was to get me past the lobby and he’d done that. The rest was up to me.

  I found the room and stood at the door for a moment, gathering my thoughts. The strange thing was that if I had second-guessed Harvey King correctly, and one of his shooters had been waiting in the room, then I’d be as good as dead when I opened the door. But if they knew, I was as good as dead whether I opened the door or not, so there was nothing to lose. There was a thin ray of hope—and it was toilet-paper thin—that I’d been wrong and the room would be empty.

  I dug into my pocket to retrieve the pack of Lucky Strikes, thinking the least I could do was take one of the bastards with me. I was about to slip the key into the door when I realized that I hadn’t reloaded after putting one in Chase’s neck. I took a step back, leaned against the wall, and twisted the bottom of the pack open. After carefully removing the molded Styrofoam container that held the cyanide missiles, I flipped the top of the pack open and, holding my breath, removed one of the pellets. I carefully dropped it down the barrel, as Sam had demonstrated. After replacing the Styrofoam holding the last two shots, I stepped up to the door again, slipped the key into the lock, took a deep breath, and turned it. The door swung open and I stepped into a completely empty room.

  I had to laugh because I realized that as relieved as I was, I was also a little bit disappointed that I’d got it wrong about Harvey’s game plan.

  “Can we make a deal?”

  I spun around and almost fired a cyanide pellet into Horst, who was standing behind me in the doorway.

  “Jesus Christ, Horst! If you keep sneaking up on people like that, you’re gonna get yourself killed!”

  He stepped in and closed the door.

  “What kind of deal?” I said.

  “That you don’t bullshit me again.”

  “What’s the other half?”

  “Other half?”

  “There are usually two sides to a deal. I don’t bullshit you again is one side, what’s the other side?” He looked quizzically at the pack of Luckys I was aiming at him and I put them back in my pocket.

  “I’m not stupid,” he said.

  “I don’t think you’re stupid, Horst. Just a little inexperienced.”

  “Is this why you have tried to get rid of me?”

  I started the search with a basket of fruit that was sitting on the table. The note said “Welcome to the Victoria Hotel” in German, English, and French.

  “Look, Horst,” I said, “the only thing I want right now is to find the goddamned password….”

  “I can help,” he said. I gave him a look. He wasn’t going to go away, so I suggested he check the bathroom.

  “Of course!” he said enthusiastically, and went in.

  “Look for anything unusual or out of place,” I called after him. “Writing on a bar of soap or a bottle of shampoo … Look in the bath, on the mirror, unroll the toilet paper, open up all the towels and washcloths, check the pockets of the bathrobes. … Check it all! If there’s a shit floating in the goddamn toilet, see if it spells anything!”

  I started going through the desk—hotel stationery, envelopes, room-service menu. … I flipped through a Welcome to West Berlin magazine and turned the ink blotter inside out in case something was written on the back. The clock by the side of the bed read 11:18. If it wasn’t too late already, it would be soon. I pulled the sheets off the mattress and was taking the pillows out of their cases when Horst walked in, absorbed in a piece of paper he was reading.

  “Did you fin
d something?” I asked.

  “No …” he said slowly. “I was just thinking—”

  “Don’t think, look!”

  “I was thinking,” he repeated, “that if this instruction referred not to an eleven o’clock check-in at the hotel, perhaps this number of confirmation is also not for the hotel. …”

  He handed me the typewritten page that had been folded into my passport. I reread it:

  VICTORIA HOTEL, SCHÖNEBERG

  11 A.M. check-in

  confirm EZECH13V10

  “Can it be that it has something to do with the password?” he speculated.

  “Horst,” I said. “I think you might be a genius.”

  “I suppose it’s possible,” he smiled. I picked up the phone and dialed reception. It rang several times before the girl’s harried voice came on the line.

  “Reception.”

  “This is Mr. Teller.”

  “Yes, Mr. Teller,” she said wearily.

  “Did you get the confirmation number for my reservation?”

  “I’m sorry?”