She seemed to know her way around. Without hesitation, she turned to her right on leaving the police building, then headed in the direction of the Frauenkirche, which is one of Munich’s downtown tourist attractions. After a brisk five-minute walk, she arrived at the Promenadeplatz, a wide square that is the location of an array of expensive shops and boutiques. It’s also the location of the Bayerischer Hof, one of Munich’s most fashionable hotels. As I watched, she greeted a uniformed doorman, who smiled and rushed to open the door.
When I arrived a minute later, he let me push open the door myself.
It was a few minutes before noon, and the hotel’s ornate atrium lobby that has an enormous glass roof was alive with people. Turning left at the front desk, I walked through the lobby, looked around. It took a few minutes before I again was able to locate Vickie. She’d removed her coat and found herself a seat on a sofa in one of the lobby’s adjoining lounges. One thing I was able to determine, even with her fashionable boots on, was that Vickie had nice legs. She had them crossed and was leafing through a magazine.
I considered sitting down next to her on the sofa. “Oh, hi. Don’t we know one another?” Resisting that urge, I positioned myself behind her and waited. It looked as if she had agreed to meet someone here and that she was early.
She only had to wait five minutes before a lanky individual with fashionably long hair and wearing a dark-blue suit materialized. He seemed familiar, but it took me a minute to place his face. Although I’d been hearing a great deal about Kurt Mehling and had seen him answering questions on television, I was seeing him in the flesh for the first time. He took Vickie’s hand, gave her a chaste brush on the cheek, and they sat down. While they were chatting, I circled around and snapped a pair of pictures. After about five minutes, they stood up and, both looking very serious, walked together to the Garden Restaurant, the large Mediterranean-style eating place adjoining the hotel’s lobby. From a point in the lobby outside the door of the restaurant, I watched the headwaiter lead them to a booth opposite the large green plants at the center of the room.
Through the entrance I could see the table at which they were seated. They were definitely a power couple. When the waiter arrived, Mehling pointed to the wine card and carried on a brief discussion, no doubt about vintages.
Seated in one of the lobby’s comfortable armchairs, I thought things over for perhaps five minutes. The Garden was a fashionable restaurant and not a place in which I wanted to make a scene or, for that matter, a fool of myself. But the way I now saw things, this opportunity was too good to pass up. At a haberdasher’s in the lobby, I acquired a gray necktie that the clerk said was a perfect match for my blue sports jacket and which set me back nearly a week’s salary. As I walked through the corridor toward the restaurant, I recalled, in Leadership School, a grizzled old sergeant explaining at length the many ways in which the element of surprise can work in your favor.
Of course, he was talking about heavily fortified enemy positions and not five-star restaurants.
Entering the restaurant, I went by the headwaiter with a nod.
I approached the table so that Vickie saw me first. When I halted, pretending surprise, her eyes widened.
“Vickie!” I flashed a broad smile. “What a surprise! It’s nice seeing you again.”
Trying to conceal her astonishment, she frowned, then stuck a napkin in front of her mouth. She might have turned a shade paler. Mehling, who had a wine glass in his hand, looked at me, obviously puzzled.
“May I?” As I eased my way into the booth, I said in English, “Vickie, you look wonderful. Life in Munich must agree with you.” I noticed that her teeth looked better than they had in Kosovo. “Shouldn’t you introduce me to your associate?”
Recovering very nicely, Vickie said, “Mr. Klear, isn’t it? Alex Klear?”
“You have a good memory, Vickie.”
“This is Kurt Mehling, Mr. Klear.”
“The publisher?” When Mehling nodded, I said, “I’m delighted. Vickie and I know one another from Kosovo.”
Mehling’s expression clouded.
Vickie leaned forward. “This is the individual I’ve been telling you about, Kurt.”
“The gentleman from Kosovo?” Mehling couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. When Vickie nodded, he looked at me. “Really?”
“Yes. Really.”
I couldn’t help thinking that that old sergeant was right about the element of surprise. For a few seconds, Mehling’s mouth hung open and his eyes remained wide. He recovered quickly. Smiling, he said, “From what I understand, you had quite an exciting time there.”
“Exciting isn’t the word for it, Mr. Mehling.”
“Kurt. Please call me Kurt. We’re all friends here.”
I said to Vickie, “How are things in Kosovo, Vickie? How is Ra-mush?” I looked at Mehling and smiled. “Ramush Nadaj. He’s another friend.”
Mehling told a passing waiter to bring another wine glass. He’d effortlessly morphed into the perfect host.
“You do get around, Vickie,” I said.
“You also seem to get around,” Mehling said.
“I guess you could say that, Kurt. It’s such a small world. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Mehling said quickly, “It certainly is. Very small.”
As the waiter poured, Mehling said, “Pinot Noir from Marlborough, New Zealand.” After we’d all taken a sip, he looked at me. “What brings you to Munich? Business? Pleasure?”
“Pure pleasure. There’s so much for a tourist to do here.”
“There is indeed.”
“Museums, galleries, castles.” I nodded at Vickie. “Old friends.”
Smiling, Mehling said, “Have you been doing anything besides visiting museums and galleries?”
Mehling’s question was an indirect reference to my having helped break Brinkman out of jail. He wanted me to know that he knew. I was sure that Vickie had described me to Mehling in detail. He might also have guessed that I’d killed Quemal.
I decided to pop a question of my own. “I heard you lost one of your reporters a while back. Is it true she was murdered?”
Mehling nodded. “Ursula Vogt. Yes, she worked for me. Her death was a tragedy.”
“Her murderer escaped jail,” Vickie said.
“That’s terrible,” I said. “Perhaps he’ll be caught.”
“Perhaps,” Mehling said. He looked at me questioningly.
“I heard a rumor that Miss Vogt no longer believed the story she was reporting was accurate. Is that right?”
“I wouldn’t know about that.”
I took another small sip of wine, glanced at my watch. “I’m afraid I have to run.”
“Are you sure? We’d be delighted to have you join us for lunch.”
“Perhaps another time. Thank you for the invitation and the wine.”
I’d gotten Mehling interested, and that was all I wanted to do. He couldn’t be sure how much I knew. Or how much support I might have. Looking at Vickie, I said, “It’s been nice seeing you. I’m sure we’ll run into one another again.”
As I got to my feet, Mehling also stood up. As I stepped away from the table, he moved with me, then placed his hand on my shoulder. He removed a business card from his billfold. “That’s my private number. I’d like to continue this conversation. Call, why don’t you, Alex? This evening would be fine.”
I nodded a goodbye, and he nodded back. It was impossible not to be amused by Mehling’s and Vickie’s continuing astonishment. The sergeant in Leadership School certainly knew what he was talking about.
“My name is Klear, and I’m a representative of the American government and was with the American president when he visited Albania last June. I want to speak with Sedfrit Sulja.”
It was three hours after my meeting with Mehling and Vickie, and I was standing in the living room of our apartment, my cell phone in my hand. According to Irmie, Sedfrit Sulja was a major player in the Independence for Kosovo mo
vement.
“What do you wish to speak with Mr. Sulja about?” The woman on the other end spoke German with an Albanian accent.
“About independence for Kosovo. My colleague and I were with the president during his visit to Albania last year.”
“Mr. Sulja is not here at the moment.”
I said, “When you speak with Mr. Sulja, tell him that a representative from the American government has just arrived from Washington, D.C., and wishes to speak with him about independence for Kosovo.”
After I’d hung up, Buck asked, “Why speak with him?”
“It’s a long shot, but I’m wondering if he might be willing to reveal the whereabouts of Ramush Nadaj.”
Buck frowned. “From what the senator told me, there’s talk that in the new government Nadaj will be nominated for a cabinet position.”
“Did the senator say anything about sarin gas?” Buck had indicated that he’d had dinner two nights before with one of the members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“No one’s supposed to know about sarin gas. It’s too deadly.”
“The first I heard about it was from Brinkman. Sylvia would never mention it.”
“Probably with good reason. She might have had orders from people upstairs not to say anything about sarin. The fewer the people who know that story the better.”
“What story?”
“According to the senator, forty soldiers from Kosovo died from sarin gas in Afghanistan. They were killed by their own people.”
“It wasn’t ours.”
“No, it wasn’t. Saddam Hussein had factories in Iraq. He didn’t have the technology to produce nuclear weapons, but he was able to produce chemical weapons.”
I said, “Like everyone else, I also know that the UN inspectors never found any evidence of Saddam manufacturing nerve gas. And when our army invaded Iraq no weapons of mass destruction were found.”
Buck said, “Hussein got rid of it before the inspectors arrived. The question is: What happened to it? Our intelligence people have been scrambling all over trying to locate those canisters. Some went to Syria. One of the other places they landed was Afghanistan, where they fell into the hands of the Taliban. Their first thought was to use sarin against our troops in the east.”
“I never heard of that happening.”
“It never did happen, and the senator told me why. The Taliban got what they thought was a better idea. Since our guys have chemical warfare uniforms, they realized sarin gas might not do much damage. So they came up with an alternative plan.”
“They decided they’d use it against their own soldiers and give us the blame.”
“And ruin our country’s reputation. We’d look like the worst kind of international hoodlums, a country so desperate we’d break every rule and defy every treaty.”
Buck took a swallow of beer and continued to talk.
“Since the Geneva Convention outlawing the use of gas ninety years ago, no nation has used it. Hitler toyed with the notion, but the idea was shot down by his generals. If al-Qaeda had been able to persuade the world that the United States was using sarin gas, we’d look even worse than Hitler.”
I said, “If the world believed the story, al-Qaeda could even justify exploding a nuclear device in the United States.”
“That’s where Kurt Mehling fits in. They’d have to publicize it, and get the word out. As the publisher of Welt-Bericht, Mehling could arrange that. Bin Laden’s network had been secretly financing Mehling’s magazines for years. By the way, the senator says Bin Laden’s days are definitely numbered.”
“Finally!”
When I asked if we knew where he was, Buck nodded. “It won’t be long.”
Buck knew about the photographs showing Mehling and Bin Laden together. “Since they knew we would deny the charge and that the story would get plenty of scrutiny, they needed to send a reputable reporter out to Afghanistan, someone who would honestly research the story and someone whom people would believe.”
“Ursula Vogt.”
“Exactly. She was honest, and she was gutsy. She’d been with a couple of good newspapers before going to work at Welt-Bericht. She wasn’t afraid of anything. In Afghanistan, when she made contact with the Taliban, they told her that the American forces had launched a gas attack.”
“Wasn’t she skeptical?”
“Sure, but the Taliban brought Vogt and a photographer up to examine the site. When she reported back to the magazine, Mehling told her to verify what happened, and gather as much evidence as possible that the attack was by the American army. They knew we’d deny it, and that meant their claim had to be airtight. And that’s how she came into contact with Doug Brinkman again, who at that time was out in Afghanistan. She knew him already from her first tour.”
“She seems to have used every trick in the book.”
Buck grimaced. “She was the Mata Hari of war correspondents. At first, Brinkman fell for it all. Maybe he really liked her. I’m not sure exactly what he said.”
“He admitted to making some offhand comments. That we may have stockpiled nerve gas, just in case someone uses it against us. Brinkman never said we’d used it, but perhaps in an unguarded moment, he may have said it was always a possibility.”
Buck took a swallow of beer. “Well, there may have been other unguarded moments. By this time, Brinkman had been in Afghanistan for months. Suddenly, he has an attractive woman showing all kinds of interest in him.”
I pulled out my phone and punched in a number. “Speaking of Mr. Mehling, he said he wants to talk with me.”
“Alex! I’m so delighted to hear from you. I found our conversation today interesting. I’m wondering if we could continue it.”
“Tonight would be fine with me.”
He hesitated, then said, “I have an appointment, Alex.”
I said, “I have an appointment too, with the prime minister. I’ll cancel it.”
I heard Mehling chuckle. “I truly am busy this evening.” After a pause he said, “Tomorrow evening, Alex. I could meet you at seven. Do you know the park that looks out on the Tegernsee? We could meet there.”
“What time?”
“Seven. I’ll be on one of the benches.”
“I’ll find you, Kurt.”
After hanging up, I said, “Mehling calls me Alex.”
“Now that you’re on a first-name basis with an important citizen,” Buck said, “I hope you won’t forget your old friends.”
“What old friends?” I went into the bedroom and returned a minute later holding the 9mm Beretta that Irmie had returned to me the previous evening.
“I don’t suppose you intend to shoot him,” Buck said.
When I told Buck what I intended to do, he made a sour face, and I knew why. The only other time I’d tried planting evidence was a case involving some American military contractors who were selling cocaine to jazz musicians visiting Munich. When our scheme backfired, the contractors got off and I ended up in all kinds of hot water.
It was at that time that the Air Force colonel described me as “a loose cannon to end all loose cannons.” Come to think of it, maybe I deserved that evaluation. And maybe I’ve come to see it as a compliment more than a criticism.
I said, “Mehling’s a big shot. He’s untouchable.” My thought was that by planting the gun in Mehling’s car, we could pin Quemal’s murder on him.
“Let’s hope it works this time,” Buck said. He didn’t look happy.
Chapter 32
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Kurt Mehling, dressed in a stocking cap, blue ski jacket, and dark woolen pants, paused, took a long drag on the cigar he had just lit up, and gazed out toward the water. “Some people believe we are headed toward an Armageddon,” he said. “What do you think, Alex?”
“I left my crystal ball at home this evening.”
He smiled. “That’s what I like about Americans—the sauciness, the endless wisecracks. The refusal to take even the most earnes
t matters seriously.”
“It sounds like you’re describing prime-time television.”
We were seated next to one another on a bench overlooking Tegernsee, one of the alpine lakes just south of Munich. Two men occupied a bench diagonally across the quadrangle. They were near enough to observe but not near enough to overhear. Buck had driven me out here, and since he was somewhere behind us, I wasn’t concerned about Mehling’s goons.
Although Mehling had suggested this meeting, all we’d done so far was exchange small talk.
In front of us was a broad lawn that sloped for about a hundred feet toward the water. The other benches were occupied mostly by couples, young people speaking quietly.
Mehling smiled appreciatively, blew some smoke.
“The humor is what I miss living in Germany.” He paused. “Life here is orderly, predictable. I lived for a while in the States, you know.”
“I heard.”
“Ah, my reputation precedes me.”
“Such as it is, Kurt.” When Mehling chuckled, I said, “I’m assuming you don’t like America.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Your news magazine, Welt-Bericht, is anti-American.”
Mehling gazed down at his cigar, and didn’t answer right away. Tegernsee was a pretty sight, and after a moment he returned his gaze to the inky water. The lights from distant buildings twinkled in the darkness, and a handful of stars were visible overhead. In the distance the Alps were looming black shadows silhouetted against a dark-blue sky. Bavaria, like much of Germany, is so beautiful I would sometimes wonder why the German people ever felt a necessity to acquire new territories or start a war—or organize and carry out such unmitigated horrors as the Holocaust.
“You know, Alex, I’ll let you in on a little secret. This is where I come when I’m seeking relaxation. When I’ve had a difficult day, I drive down here, find a bench. I’ll sit here in the darkness, just looking out at the water. The water, I find, has a soothing effect. Sometimes I’ll sit here for hours.”
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