What were the chances that each of us would carry out his role perfectly? I figured about one in a thousand.
My appointment with Detective Schneider was for 1400 hours. Brinkman’s meeting was scheduled for 1430, but would probably last no more than ten minutes, if that. I was assuming it would begin on time. Punctuality in Germany is more than a virtue; it’s an obsession.
Before heading to Schneider’s office, I walked from one end of the third-floor corridor to the other and back, preparing myself for every imaginable contingency, and I could feel the adrenalin rush. The corridor was empty. Doing my best to appear casual and trying to ignore my heart, which was beating like a jackhammer, I checked out the men’s washroom where we intended for Brinkman to do his quick-change act. I hoped he could find it. A couple of uniformed cops were inside, talking about a soccer match. I washed my hands and left. The room would have to be empty for Brinkman to use it.
I headed toward the section of the building housing the homicide squad. At a few minutes after 1400 hours, I knocked on Schneider’s door.
“This is a nice office you have, Detective Schneider.”
“They renovated this end of the building a couple of years ago. One big difference is the lighting.” Schneider pointed to a fluorescent fixture. “Much brighter than it used to be.”
“Nothing but the best for the homicide squad.”
Schneider nodded. “Give me a second, will you, Klear? I have something here I have to finish up.”
“Kein Problem.” No problem.
Irmie’s desk was empty. I was glad of that. After less than five minutes, Schneider tossed down his pen and removed his glasses.
“So what’s the information you want to give us, Mr. Klear?” On his face was an impatient frown.
“It has to do with the murder in the K Klub.” When Schneider nodded, I said, “I’d try to find out just what happened in Afghanistan. That might give some clue to what’s been going on out at that club.”
“This was a while ago, wasn’t it?” Schneider said. He seemed distracted, and I had the idea his mind was on something else.
“Last year sometime.”
“Klear, listen. We’re just the local police. We have problems just keeping up with the situation in this city. How the hell are we supposed to investigate something that happened so far away?”
“One way might be to question the people out at the Kalashni Klub. They know more than they’re telling—”
At that moment the door opened, and a detective stepped into the office. He looked at me, then at Schneider.
Schneider frowned. “I’ve got other cases, Klear.”
“I know.” I got to my feet. “I understand.”
When I was at the door, he said, “We’ll be in touch.”
It was 1420 hours—two twenty—when I left Schneider’s office. But the way I figured, it was still too early to tack up the sign on the washroom door. Moving purposefully, I went from the section of the building holding the Mordkommission toward the older part of the presidium. Some people entered and exited the offices. Two secretaries carried on a brief conversation before heading off in different directions.
I paused to read a bulletin board. I stopped at a stone fountain, which was a memorial to fallen policemen. I checked my watch: 1425.
The room in which I assumed Brinkman’s hearing would soon take place was one flight up.
After some more dawdling, I figured it was time to tack up the sign, which I was carrying in a shopping bag along with the clothing and wig. Brinkman would have to move quickly to get this stuff on in time.
I started back in the direction of the washroom and had gone only a few yards when my cell phone rang. It was Harry Owen calling from upstairs. “Brinkman just left the hearing room.”
“Already? I thought—”
“We were only in there for five minutes, maybe less. No judge, just a clerk, and she was a no-nonsense type. Brinkman’s got two guards with him. They’re walking up the corridor. No handcuffs. Wait. Okay. They’ve stopped in front of the latrine. He’s going inside. He’ll be down in a minute. I’ll start talking to these guys.”
“Got it.”
Within seconds, I’d tacked up the sign, which would indicate to Brinkman the washroom in which to find the clothing.
Inside were two men, one in uniform and one in civvies. After washing his hands, the cop left. The other guy then decided to run a comb through his thinning hair. I could have told him not to bother but he wanted to make every strand count. Then, just as he pushed open the door to leave, Brinkman barged in.
Brinkman was wearing his prison uniform. His eyes were wide, and the tension was written all over his face. Fortunately, the guy who was leaving was still thinking about his hair and didn’t seem to notice.
I nodded, pointed toward the shopping bag, then stepped outside. I was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, and in an effort to appear like a janitor, I slipped off my jacket and slung it over my shoulder. Just as I did, two young cops approached.
“Sorry, fellas.” I pointed to the sign. “We’ve got a small flood inside. The urinals are all overflowing. The plumber’s on his way.”
“Hey man, c’mon. I’ll be pissing in—”
“What can I tell you? It’s a real mess in there.”
“I have to get back to—”
“What’s with you guys? Use the washroom at the other end!”
Still grumbling, the cops left, and I assumed Brinkman was changing. We were already running behind schedule, and I figured we didn’t have much more than a minute before the guards upstairs would realize they’d lost their prisoner. I felt a sinking feeling. We’d never make it.
But there was no turning back now.
After waiting another twenty seconds and turning away another customer, I took off down the stairway on my way to the main entrance. We needed every last second, and I was hoping that Harry Owen on the fourth floor had a song and dance to distract the two guards and buy another minute.
At the entrance there were a couple of people talking to the policeman behind the glass and fumbling for some ID. As the guard continued to talk with his visitors, I waved, but he didn’t seem to notice. I needed to have the door open when Brinkman arrived.
By the time the guard looked in my direction, a half minute had passed.
Where was Brinkman?
With the door open, and thinking Brinkman would show, I hesitated, then began searching through my pockets.
But at that moment I saw the policeman behind the glass holding a telephone to his ear. He frowned, said something into the phone, and nodded. Then he waved to me to close the door and step into the lobby. His alarmed expression indicated he knew there was an escaped prisoner in the building. A minute later, two armed policemen entered the lobby. They conferred with the guard behind the glass, checked my ID, and told me to leave.
Outside, I pushed through the downtown shoppers and dawdlers, and headed around the corner to Donisl, the big restaurant in which I was supposed to meet Sylvia. I found her in one of the high-backed booths along the wall. On the table in front of her were a glass of white wine and her cell phone. She looked at me questioningly.
As I slid into the booth, I shook my head.
“No sign of him.”
“Damn!”
“He made it down to the washroom. I waited downstairs. He never showed at the main entrance.” I shrugged. The thought occurred to me that the best battle plans last only until the battle starts. Evidently, the same rule holds true for jailbreak plans.
A waiter asked me what I wanted. Pointing at Sylvia’s glass, I said, “The same.”
“He had time. It was over four minutes between his arrival on the third floor and when they got the alarm downstairs.” I paused. “It might have worked. He only had to—”
“But it didn’t work.” She gulped some wine. “What could have gone wrong? Someone caught him changing clothes?”
“I don’t think so. I waited ou
tside the washroom for over a minute. Like I say, it—”
“I know. It could have worked. Save it, Alex.” Sylvia’s expression was full of suppressed rage. “Save the excuses and explanations, okay?”
“Look, I’m only trying to—”
“I’m so fed up with you it’s hard to describe.” Maybe Sylvia was still mad about our bedroom interlude. I couldn’t help thinking about how badly I’d handled that situation. And she continued to harp on the fact that I’d let the woman at the Kalashni Klub escape. Now, it appeared, I’d bungled the jail breakout.
Something else I was thinking of was how pleasant life had been back in Saranac, where the week’s biggest problem was a disgruntled customer.
“All I’m trying to say is—”
“It didn’t work. That’s all that counts. I don’t want to hear it.”
When the waiter brought the wine, I took a long swallow. Sylvia looked at me silently, then directed her gaze into her own wine glass. The color had gone out of her cheeks, and the lines in her forehead were pronounced. She was, no doubt, anticipating what the fallout from our little stunt figured to be. When Jerry Shenlee got the news, he’d pass it on to the NSC, and from there it would go to the deputy secretary of defense. As far as Sylvia’s career was concerned, this would be more than a bump in the road.
When the cops caught Brinkman, they’d go through his pockets. I asked myself what they’d find—an S-Bahn ticket, a cell phone, some money, the number of Sylvia’s cell phone. At least her number was un-traceable. Jerry Shenlee had made sure of that.
I caught the waiter’s eye, and when I told him to bring me another wine, Sylvia also asked for one. When the waiter returned, I exchanged our empty glasses for two full glasses. In the last five minutes neither Sylvia nor I had said anything. All we’d done is gulp wine.
As I took another long swallow, Sylvia’s cell phone began ringing. She grabbed it.
“Hello—Yes—My God! Are you—? Where?” Gazing wide-eyed across the table, she began nodding excitedly. “It’s him. It’s Doug.” I grabbed the phone.
“This is Alex. Where are you?”
“I’m at the East Railroad station. On the platform. What do I do?”
“Grab the first train going south.”
“There’s an S-3. It’s about to leave.”
“Take it. It’ll take you to Holzkirchen. Get off there.” I thought quickly. “Look for a restaurant called Oberland. But don’t go in. We’ll meet you across the street. There’s a train ticket in the pocket. Make sure it’s canceled. Get going.”
I threw some money down on the table. “C’mon.” On the way to the door, I said, “If the cops don’t grab him in the train, he’ll be in Holzkirchen in forty-five minutes. Where’s the car?”
“In a garage, two minutes from here,” Sylvia said, pointing the way and handing me the keys.
Chapter 27
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Holzkirchen is a small city in the northern foothills of the Alps, and I figured we’d need at least a half hour to drive down there. Since she’d be taking Brinkman somewhere and didn’t know how long she’d be gone from the safe house, Sylvia had tossed all her personal stuff, a large suitcase and a small suitcase, into the trunk of the car before leaving.
As we drove, she said, “Something else, Alex. I’ve gotten rid of everything that you brought back from the Vogt woman’s place. Whatever was worth keeping I have with me.”
The autobahn heading south is a heavily traveled highway that leads toward Salzburg, and twenty miles south of Munich I turned onto a secondary highway that would take us straight into Holzkirchen.
“What do you think happened?” Sylvia asked. “How did he get out?”
“No idea.” There were still a number of things that could go wrong, and I was worried that the cops would be watching all the S-Bahn lines closely. Any male traveling alone would attract their attention. It now occurred to me that I should have suggested a stop closer to Munich, but there are seven or eight different lines, and Holzkirchen was the only stop that I recalled on the S-3. The longer Brinkman was in the train, the more chance there was that he could be nailed.
I’d begun to sweat and I was conscious of clutching the steering wheel as I drove.
When we reached Holzkirchen, I drove through the narrow streets and without any difficulty found the Oberland. It was a medium-sized hotel and restaurant, a landmark not far from the railroad station that would be easy for Brinkman to find. I parked the car on the street some fifty yards beyond the hotel. When Brinkman showed, we’d spot him without any difficulty.
The problem was, he didn’t show. Two trains came and went. People got off and came walking out of the station, but none of them was Brinkman. When I checked my watch, I saw that well over an hour had elapsed since he’d made the call.
“What now?” Sylvia asked after the second train left the station. “Shouldn’t he have been on one of those?” When I only nodded, Sylvia said, “What now, Alex?”
I was about to say the cops could have grabbed him on the train, but there was no sense tossing in the towel—not when we’d come this far.
I said, “We wait.”
Sitting in the car parked in the narrow street, we waited another twenty minutes. Beads of perspiration kept forming on my forehead. Sylvia’s breathing became so labored it began to sound like gasping. I was ready to announce that it was pointless to wait any longer.
Then, in the rearview mirror, I spotted a distant figure riding uncertainly up the narrow street on a bicycle. When he reached the intersection, he stopped pedaling and looked around. He seemed to be out of breath.
The cycler caught my attention because of what he was wearing—a gray sports jacket, a jacket the same color as the one Sylvia and I had bought for Brinkman—and he had on a white shirt, blue tie, and dark-gray pants. He was dressed like Brinkman. When he started riding again and got closer, I made out his face—Doug Brinkman! I jumped out of the car and waved my arms. He saw me and started riding toward us. When he pulled up alongside, we exchanged silent high fives, and I tossed the bike into the trunk of the car.
As Brinkman climbed in, he and Sylvia exchanged glances, and if I had any doubts about them being lovers, they disappeared at that moment. I got the engine going and eased the vehicle into traffic.
“I can’t believe I made it,” Brinkman said. He was breathing heavily, obviously out of breath from riding fast.
“What in the world happened?” Sylvia asked, her voice a combination of panic and relief.
“What could go wrong, did go wrong,” Brinkman said. “Were you guys worried?”
“Of course not,” I said. “A Green Beret can do anything. Isn’t that what they used to tell us at Fort Bragg?”
“Yeah, but who believed that stuff?”
Five minutes later, I pulled off the highway into a small rest area just south of the city. While we sat there, Brinkman told us the story.
“The reason I didn’t make it down to the entrance was I got lost. I went the wrong way when I left the washroom and couldn’t find the fire stairs. So I just decided to keep moving. A couple of women unlocked a door, and I just followed them down a flight of stairs and I ended up in the employees’ canteen. I saw people leaving, but I could see they were all showing ID to some cops at the door. Then I saw a fella with a container of coffee knock on a door on the other end and someone on the other side of the door opened it. I grabbed a half-empty container off one of the tables and did what he did. When someone on the other side unlocked the door, I was in a room with a lot of chairs and a lot of people with pads and pencils standing around. A couple of cops were on a podium gathering up papers and talking.”
When Sylvia looked at me, I said, “The briefing room for members of the press. It’s on the first floor, next to the canteen.”
“Nobody expected me to turn up there,” Brinkman said.
“What did you do?” Sylvia asked.
“Some kind of meeti
ng was breaking up and as the people started drifting out, I drifted out with them. An exit was right there. A couple of cops showed up and started checking people, but I just walked by as if I was too important to show ID.”
I took a quick glance at Sylvia. I’d been skeptical, but by picking out the right clothes for Brinkman, she might very well have averted disaster. No wonder the secretary of defense had confidence in her.
Brinkman said, “I don’t think they expected an escaped prisoner to be in that group. I went right by them and found myself in a street next to a museum.”
I nodded. “The hunter’s museum. The rear door of the police building exits on the Augustinerstrasse. You weren’t far from Marienplatz.”
“I saw that, so I went down into the S-Bahn.” The S-Bahn is the subway, Munich’s answer to the London Underground and the Paris Metro.
I said, “You called us from the East Railroad Station.”
Brinkman nodded. “I was on the platform. But the next train I took only went a couple of stations when it stopped—I forget the name, began with a U.”
“Unterhaching?”
“I think so. Anyway, I waited a minute, then took a look around. The conductor was talking to the train operator, and I figured they expected to be there a while. I didn’t like that. I thought the local cops might show up and start looking through the train.”
“What then?” Sylvia asked.
“I might have been right. As I left the station, four cops came marching up the steps. I stayed behind a concrete pillar, then exited the station. My problem then was getting down here. My first thought was to take a taxi, but a driver could have asked questions and maybe caused problems. I went by a bicycle shop. Since I found five hundred euros in the pocket of the jacket I decided I’d buy a bicycle. The owner was real friendly. I guess he was happy to sell a bike.”
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