Circle Around the Sun

by M. D. Johnson

  “Probably Colonel, because history keeps eradicating them,” Emily responded sarcastically.

  “Always be mindful of Churchill, Emily. If you want to know the future look at the past, Winnie always made that point. Mankind follows predictable behavior. The Israelis are using the divide and conquer technique and it will backfire! It always does.”

  “Thanks so much for the chocolate digestive biscuits, Colonel,” Emily tried to change the subject. “I do appreciate your thoughtfulness. I have rather a sweet tooth, as you know.”

  He passed her the large package of her favorite accompaniment to her morning tea. “Colonel,” she added coyly, “are you familiar with the adage ‘Beware of Brits bearing gifts’?”

  “You’ve found me out again.”

  “So, Colonel, why are you here? Not just to take in the air of a thriving tourist trap like Heidelberg’s Haupstrasse.”

  “Earlier this year, Emily, our contacts in Mossad told us they had been tipped off that the chap Salameh, the one they missed rather badly in Lillehammer, was observed near the Duchy of Lichtenstein, near the Swiss German border. We understand that Salameh was going to meet PLO leaders in a church there.”

  “Oh come on, Colonel! Hardly a covert assignation. PLO terrorists converging discretely on Castle Lichtenstein? Christ! Why didn’t they try something really undercover like a call to prayer in, let’s say, Golda Meir’s front garden in Tel Aviv? It’s not like Lichtenstein is inundated with Arab tourists, is it?”

  “My dear, it does get rather more comedic. The team decided to attack the church.”

  “What!” Emily exclaimed “Where do they get off? These people are no better than the ones they are trying to get rid of?”

  “Well, my dear. They entered the church and encountered, would you believe, three young Arabs armed to the teeth.”

  “You’re kidding!’ Emily gulped her tea and tore into another digestive biscuit. “They’re all barking mad. All of them. I keep trying to understand them all, Arab and Jew but maybe we should simply sit back and let them destroy each other.”

  “If I may go on my dear, the Arab went for his pistol,” Beresford continued excitedly, “and the Israelis started shooting. Now bear in mind there are tourists around and the lot of them, terrorists and hit squad go tearing down the stone steps, terrifying priests and tourists, everyone looking for Salameh. Not a successful mission and Salameh escaped.”

  “I bet Aunty Golda was pissed. What was the collateral damage?”

  “The Israelis aborted the mission and, miraculously for their government got out without being caught, leaving three armed and very dead young Arabs. The point here is that the same team members were sighted in England in May of this year. One of our people was able to photograph the team not too long ago. The ‘Zwaiter business’, if you recall. They were sighted in London would you believe, and our friends in the United States as well as on the home front would like this resolved now. We have been advised by London Centre that the team left for Frankfurt, which is why I got involved. They stayed at the Hotel Europa, and then an odd thing happened. One of them met a blonde woman, who looked like a...what does Shallal call them?”

  “I believe his term is usually ‘barfly’, sir.”

  “Quite, Emily, quite. I rather prefer the term ‘honey-trap’. But I digress. The woman attempted to “chat up” one of the Israelis, shall we say, and failed. The chap left to have dinner and when he returned to the bar he saw the same woman with one of his associates. He thought she was a call girl or something. Not wanting to get in the way of their progress, he left them to it and moved to yet another watering hole in the hotel. On his way back to his room he passed his associate’s room and heard them talking and laughing inside with the radio or television playing and that was that. He recognized her voice; he said it had been quite distinctive. The next morning, however, his associate didn’t show up for breakfast. The Israeli forced his way into the chap’s room and found him naked on the bed, dead as a bloody door post from a bullet wound to the chest. He contacted “Le Group” immediately. They, in their own inimitable way, got rid of the body and sanitized the place before anyone cottoned on to the situation. Now everyone is looking for the woman.”

  “How does that involve me?”

  ”We want to find her before the Israelis or “Le Group”. We need to know if she’s an independent or whether she’s working for the Palestinians.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Good enough. You’ll have to report to Wils de Crecy, I’m afraid.”

  “Just what I always wanted. What’s happened to Salameh?”

  “Still out there, knowing there’s a price on his head,” Beresford replied.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

  Emily had been considering a major shopping trip to Ulla’s Boutique even before the visit from Colonel Beresford. It was spring; she was planning on taking a trip to the United States in July to see Harrison Cowan, with whom she had developed what her parents termed “an understanding”. He was one of the few men she had met who shared her love of the arts, history and the Middle East. Moreover, Cowan was not intimidated by her. Emily, on the other hand, didn’t want to make any mistakes in this relationship and so she had planned a visit to see if she liked it and if all went well she would give his offer of a more permanent relationship some serious thought. She had also decided to take her children to Afghanistan to see their other grandparents and to visit with them for a few weeks before leaving for the States, stopping in England to see her parents on the way back to Germany.

  Nothing had changed at the boutique. The regular “beautiful people”, when exhausted from buying fashionable clothes would take a break from their spending by drinking excellent champagne while wolfing down smoked salmon and caviar, Indonesian rice salad with hollowed out tomatoes stuffed with shrimp and deviled eggs in never ending supply. This was, Emily thought most sincerely, the only way to shop. A few good customers sat outside in the bistro chairs, openly smoking exceedingly fat and rather obvious joints, knowing that the police considered it a waste of time to bother them. They were after all, the elite.

  Missing from the usual crowd was Verena Stoltz. When Emily asked after her, she was told in hushed tones by Ulla that Verena had never returned from a trip to Paris last year. “She was suspected of taking a more active part in the Red Army Faction, but maybe she has gone solo,” Ulla added somewhat disconcertingly.

  “Are you saying that she’s missing?” Emily asked

  ‘I am saying that no one knows where she is, and frankly Emily, from what I’ve heard, no one around here wants to know!” Julian, Ulla’s Cameroon boyfriend, who himself had contacts in the arms trading business had referred Verena to some of his clients. Verena called her from Paris as well as London and then she came back to Germany. “What happened after that, it was anyone’s guess,” Ulla went on, “although I heard her making hotel reservations from here and when I got my phone bill there was a call to a place in Amsterdam.”

  “So what does she do that enables her to travel so much at the expense of other people? And more to the point, why aren’t we doing it?” Emily said nonchalantly, refilling both Ulla’s and her own glasses for the third time.

  Ulla began to laugh as she gulped her drink, now having a much deeper relationship with the bottle of champagne than Emily, who continued to top off the woman’s glass. Ulla motioned Emily to one side away from the other customers.

  “Do you know what I think she does?” Ulla asked, pausing for effect, “I really think she’s a free lance assassin.” Noticing the astonished look on Emily’s face, she continued, “I mean, I’m not sure but I hear a lot of things.”

  “Oh come on, this isn’t Hollywood Ulla, it’s Heidelberg,” Emily pointed out, stuffing more salmon into her mouth.

  “Don’t you know what all the money that gets collected in the club goes towards Em? Supply and demand, my dear. You know what Julian does for a living? It’s what they all do, thes
e African students. They collect from one government or another. Look at the Otu couple. They’re British Intelligence spotters, for Christ sake!”

  “What?” Emily tried to appear astounded although she had suspected as much.

  “Well, they were, at least. They’re back in Nigeria now. Didn’t you keep in touch?”

  “Well no, actually, which was rather sad as their parents and mine are friends. I didn’t know they returned.”

  “They had no choice, Emily. Their cover was blown.”

  “How do you know all this?” Emily asked genuinely.

  “I listen and play stupid white girl who didn’t finish school. I just keep taking mental notes and bank the cash I make. One day I’ll give it all up and move to Switzerland. Just you wait and see. As for Verena, that girl is crazy. She just hates everyone.”

  “How did it start though?” Emily kept prodding, knowing she would never get a chance like this again as she poured Ulla another glass.

  “She fell in love with an African who knocked her up and left her.”

  “I thought it was a GI,” said Emily, now somewhat surprised.

  “That’s just a story she tells to weave a little confusion.”

  “She met a guy and fell in love. He was wealthy and promised to a tribal girl. That’s the way it gets done in Ibo country. He was over here at his tribe’s expense. He had to follow the rules or they’d consider him a waste and bring him home. He told Verena he would marry her. She believed him and went into the second month almost approaching the third, when another Ibo told her that her boyfriend was ‘promised’. She told the boyfriend she wanted an abortion and he found someone to do it, another African student. She was too far gone. He left her bleeding to death in her room. The boyfriend found her and she was rushed to the emergency center where he worked. In return for her not compromising him, he paid her off and she created the GI story, which was much more believable I guess, because it happens all the time.”

  “What happened to the Nigerian?” Emily asked in all innocence.

  “Who? Your boy Osita? He married a nice Nigerian girl a few months ago and moved to Liverpool, I hear”

  “Osita? No! You’re kidding me!”

  “Emily, I wouldn’t lie to you. They would, but not me. I’m as much a misfit as you are.”

  “Holy shit, Ulla! I had no idea.”

  Emily bought seven hundred Deutsche Marks worth of clothes at the expense of the British Government and went back to her office to make some calls.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

  Emily called and advised Colonel Beresford at the British Embassy in Frankfurt that she suspected the person he was looking for was possibly Verena Stoltz. Beresford had asked her to come to Frankfurt that night to evaluate some photographs. Out of curiosity more than compliance she did as she was asked and left for Frankfurt that evening. Her next door neighbor was more than happy to look after the children.

  She arrived in Frankfurt several hours later, having driven herself on the Autobahn where she much enjoyed testing how her Benz handled without speed limits on the near empty highway on the hot August night. She listened to a tape she had made herself of a brass band recording her father’s housekeeper had given her years ago of “Jerusalem”, which had been her school’s hymn and found herself singing along and brushing away her tears. No matter where she lived she had always considered herself British, and every time she heard “Jerusalem” or read Blake’s poem, she immediately thought of the Lancashire collieries and their brass bands.

  Bloody funny, this, she thought to herself. Here I am, half Arab, living in Germany on the payroll of the British Government, crying over William Blake. Why, for crying out loud? I don’t know any coal miners. I wonder if they have wogs in their bloody coal mines anyway.

  Horrible term that. Wogs! She mused haphazardly at the racial epithet, hearing her mother’s voice in her head, remembering when she had come home crying when a vicious little girl chased her, screaming “wog” at her as they ran. Elizabeth had explained that “Wog” came from the word “Golliwog”, a long legged black doll that looked like the American Raggedy Andy but in blackface. Emily had a much loved her “Golli” named Arthur, so she didn’t mind too much being called this name until her mother had told her bluntly that while it was true her heritage was different from most of the other children around her, it didn’t make her any better or worse.

  Her father, however less lenient had taken a different stance entirely, telling her they were not in the majority but one day there would be greater respect for those with dual heritage. “You are the solution,” he told her sympathetically, “not the problem! Until then, next time someone calls you names like that, do not ignore them. Punch them instead! And punch them hard!” He then taught her how to box, despite it being contrary to Middle Eastern culture where people do not ball their fists to strike. Emily had from that point on defended her heritage to everyone when necessary. She refused to back down. It was her trademark and the precise reason she was on the road to Frankfurt. She did not like bullies and to her it didn’t matter if they were Arabs, Jews, Brits, Germans or Africans.

  The British Embassy on Bockenheimer Landstrasse in Frankfurt, like the Cairo Embassy held some of the finest antiques Emily had ever seen. Archie Beresford’s room was at the end of a long corridor replete with an opulent display of oil paintings. Beresford sat at the walnut desk in a large banker’s chair, swiveling back and forth with several brown box files on his lap.

  “Ah Emily, you made excellent time. Any problem getting in? I did alert them, but these days everybody gets grilled, so to speak.”

  “Absolutely no problem, Colonel. What do you have for me?”

  “Take a quick gander at these,” he replied, pointing to some photographs of a young woman leaving The Hotel Europa.

  “Difficult to say Colonel, looking at her sideways in profile. It could be Verena, but I am not absolutely sure.”

  “How about these? No longer a blonde and slightly turned to the right. They were taken a few weeks ago in Handshusheim, which isn’t too far away from you, am I right?”

  “Actually it’s in the same county but nowhere near me. But go on, where was this taken?”

  “In a place called “Hotel Handsuhsheim”, a small gasthaus with excellent food, and a meeting place for war veterans.”

  “Well, that’s Verena’s style at least. But I’m not at all sure it’s her. The last time I talked with her she had longer hair and it was darker. She’s also much heavier. Verena was a ballet student as I recall. She’s not the typische Deutsche type and this woman is. Verena is small, waif-like, slight in build and doesn’t look as though she could actually fire a gun much less be a paid assassin. It’s out of character for her. She’s angry at the world, but I just don’t see her as that vicious. She’s a kid who’s easily led and has been let down by a truly rotten individual.”

  “Your sources are astounding, my dear. I had no idea you knew about de Crecy’s faux pas.”

  “I didn’t. I was talking about something else entirely. What does de Crecy have to do with her?”

  “He was running her last year. Nothing major, just snippets of information and a couple of reports on a few of the Heidelberg students involved with the IG Farben business a few years back. Some of them are still here.”

  “But that’s not exactly the concern of British intelligence, is it? That’s a German issue.”

  “Not when it concerns some of our “assets”, my dear.”

  “I’ll have to pass on that one Colonel. I really don’t want to know.”

  “de Crecy grew quite fond of the girl, but she completely misunderstood his intentions. He is married now anyway. But I suppose the girl had a certain charm.”

  “Bloody right she did. She’s at least ten years his junior and his new wife is middle aged, as I recall, although obviously wealthy and well connected,” Emily added quickly.

  “It seems that the girl got pregnant. De Crecy paid for the a
bortion but the girl thought he’d stick with her through the ordeal and of course that simply wasn’t possible. The girl went over the edge as they say. Did a complete turn around from what I hear. Changed her appearance, dropped her friends and went over the to the other side completely.”

  “What do you mean by ‘other side’?”

  “She went to Berlin. Looked up some old friends in the Eastern sector, stayed for a little while in Czechoslovakia, and then from what I hear she went on to Moscow. When she returned to the west, she looked like this.” He pulled out a full-faced photograph taken at a student rally in what was obviously Frankfurt not too far away. She was certainly older looking, and harsher. Lots of black eyeliner. Her hair was blonde and obviously straightened and she was dressed entirely in black. She had also gained about forty pounds.

  “She changed this much in a few months?”

  “She certainly did. Plastic Surgeons in Czechoslovakia are as good as Palm Beach I suppose. The point is do you agree that this could be, despite the hair color, slightly altered features and the weight increase, Verena Stoltz?”

  “Yes I do. I recognize her hands. When was this taken?”

  “About four hours after the murder of the Israeli in the Hotel Europa.”

  “I take it this is courtesy of the international spotters working for the Israeli hit team?”

  “Oh absolutely! You see, the team wants her too.”

  “Of course. Lex Talionis. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand. The Law of Retribution. Silly of me to forget that. Well Colonel, I might be able to track her down but that puts me at considerable risk as well. She must know there’s a price on her head.”

  “They don’t know who she is Emily, or anything about her background. All they know is that she looks like this and that she’s a free-lance assassin. They have no one who knows her well enough to identify her even with these minor changes.”