Circle Around the Sun

by M. D. Johnson

  “Oh come on. Colonel! This is Mossad. They’re the best in the world, let’s face it. They must know her by now.”

  “Not yet. We’d know if they did. We do have people on the inside. But getting back to the subject Emily, we want you to find her and offer her safety in exchange for inside information on the Red Army Faction.”

  “Rather like a needle in a haystack, sir. She could be anywhere.”

  “We’ve tracked her to Handschuhsheim. That’s your area. Although it is conceivable that she is anywhere by now. You have sufficient contacts to be able at least to come up with a lead.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

  Emily left Frankfurt just before sunset. Listening to a German radio station for traffic reports, she heard a song by the Greek songstress Vicky Leandros. It was “Ich Habe die Liebe Gesehen”. She knew the song in Greek as “O Kaimos”, and not for the first time that day she thought of Tony Shallal. It was one of his favorites. Shallal, the enigma. A victim of his job. The man with no visible feelings. He had, Emily realized now, no real interest in her. It had been casual sex, nothing else. She had been fooled at first, but so many months had gone by without any word from him that wasn’t based on departmental need. Not even a note. Not a bloody thing. How could he not have noticed the resemblance between her daughter and himself? Even her son had commented on it. Emily knew she had to get past this episode and get on with her life. Like the woman in the song, “She had seen love”, at least from her perspective, however one-sided and singularly brief. Emily promised herself that she would call Harrison in America this week and set up a date when she could visit. Emily enjoyed his friendship. She considered him carefully as she drove home. Now that was a man. He understood everything. Harrison knew that Hallah was Shallal’s child and couldn’t understand why Shallal was blind to the issue. The difference between them, Emily thought, was utterly vast. Harrison Cowan had few hang-ups. He was brilliant, logical, yet sensitive, kind and not without humor. Above all, thank heavens, he didn’t have that Middle Eastern intensity. Yes, she would talk with Harrison tonight, for one very simple reason. She missed him!

  The trip having taken several hours, when she finally got back to Heidelberg Emily was ravenous. The only reasonable place to eat in the city where she could perhaps find out more about Verena was “Shepheards Lounge” on the Hauptstrasse not far from her office. The place was modeled after Shepheards Hotel, the last remnant of colonialism in Cairo, large and comfortable with excellent food, and a certain ambience which could be found nowhere else in the city.

  Emily used the pay phone and dialed Ulla’s boutique. Ulla answered and accepted Emily’s invitation to dinner. Emily then rang her house and spoke with her neighbor, Frau Blatz who kindly took care of her children at times like this. Having checked that the children had been fed and were already asleep, she explained that she’d been delayed, was meeting a client and would be home before eleven.

  Ulla arrived at Shepheards within ten minutes. Emily had already ordered their food, knowing that Ulla like herself, loved the house specialty, Pfeffer Steak with Pommes frittes and Gherkin salad. They washed their food down with a local red wine and by the end of the meal, both women were more than talkative.

  “I need to get in touch with Verena, Ulla. This is very important. I’m going to be honest with you, she’s in terrible trouble and I can get her out of here quickly. I’ve heard on the grapevine that the police are looking for her. Some chap got shot in the hotel where she was staying and they want to ask her some questions. Ulla, you know as well as I do that her involvement with the Red Army Faction puts her in a very precarious position and I have it on very good authority that the victim was an Israeli security agent. Those guys won’t bother to ask if she was responsible or not. Tell her to meet me at your shop to talk. I’ll be free for most of the week.”

  “Emily, Verena is not doing well. She had complications from a surgery. Woman’s problems, I believe. She’s been involved with a researcher working on the scrolls they found in Egypt a year ago. Very interesting fellow, by all accounts. She was pregnant, and of course he turned out to be married and she had an abortion. Emily this was a repeat performance. She was stranded as usual and came to Julian for help. I don’t know what happened after that, only that she went to the Ostzone and that she has a place in Hoorn, in the Netherlands.”

  “Look Ulla, this is important. Is this well known, the place in Holland?”

  “It’s a group of private cottages and duplexes. Very snazzy, run like a hotel. A main building with a reception area where you register. It costs her a fortune. Julian knows the owner of the complex, that’s how she got it.”

  “How about the chap she’s been seeing? Does he know the place?”

  “Not at all. Julian and I are the only ones.”

  “Ulla, please contact her. Tell her to meet me at the boutique, somewhere here in Germany or anywhere she wants. Be discrete.”

  Ulla agreed and after a few minutes they left the lounge and walked down the Haupstrasse together. Emily gave Ulla a ride to the “Catacombe Club”, dropping in for a few minutes for a quick coffee. As she was leaving the club she saw the familiar face of Axel Stadler, alone and obviously drunk. She had no choice but to pass him on her way to the exit. As she sidled past him, aware of his morose condition and trying to stay as far away as she could in a crowded bar, he grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the empty seat next to him.

  “Ah it is die Emily. Come Miss Emily, sit by me. You know, my wife has left me. The bitch has left me for an advertising manager, a piece of shit American. Can you believe it? She has left me for that. She is going to America, she thinks. Ja, like all the others before her that have left Germany for sheisse America. I loved my Inge, you know? She has always been in my life. We were children together,” and with that he cried, banging his fist on the bar in between sobs. “We met on that hill,” He pointed to the window. “There is a kinderpark there. We lived close by and I would see her every day after school. She would get off the Strassenbahn right after that turn on the top of the hill and go to the park instead of going home.” He started to cry again.

  Emily ordered him some coffee and signaled for Ulla and Julian to help her get him into a cab before he tried to drive drunk in the still busy night traffic outside. Stadler was most resistant to offers of assistance. He yelled obscenities and lashed out physically at all three of them. “I’m going to the park. I’ll walk there, if have to. Just leave me ze fuck alone!” And with that, Stadler left the bar and staggered up the stairs to the main door.”

  “Julian, you can’t just leave him like that. Follow him!”

  “No way, woman. I don’t do aggressive Krauts,” M’butu replied, pouring himself a Dornkaat, “The man is drunk and he’ll be dangerous. I’ll call the police downtown. That’s what they get paid for, you know.”

  “Well, it’s time for me to go home anyway. Don’t forget to call them.” Emily picked up her things and left for the long drive across town back to the Heidelberg City Center and on to Ziegelhausen road.

  Her conscience struck her when she got outside. It wouldn’t take more than five minutes to drive up the hill and see if she could find Stadler. Maybe she had misjudged him. Poor bastard, she thought, he did seem to be devastated. Fancy that, Ingeborg left him. Emily decided to follow in the direction he had pointed to, at least she could watch out until the police arrived.

  She drove up the hill turning around in the parking lot at the kinderpark. She couldn’t see anything. No car lights, not even a parked car and definitely no figures lurking in the trees. She had her lights on full. Nothing, just darkness. Her window was down slightly. Oh well, she thought, maybe he changed his mind. She didn’t see the car ahead, slowly crossing her path at incredible speed until it was almost on top of her. There were no lights and hardly any sound, just the slow turn of the tires screeching on the gravel. The car was going to ram her, right there in the parking lot! The driver was screaming, “You can die too
, bitch! I’m going to die! Why should you live? Sheisse Armee whore!” Emily put her foot down. His car smacked into the rear right fender as she sped away, racing down the hill at a speed worthy of her Benz.

  “Jesus Christ! The bastard tried to kill me!” she screamed to herself. Repeating it over and over again like a private mantra until she reached the well lit parking lot of the apartment house where she lived. She parked her Benz without checking it for damage, ran to the door and used the buzzer instead of the key, hoping Frau Blatz was awake inside her home. The door opened almost immediately and she fled up the stairs.

  Emily was let into her apartment by an astonished Frau Blatz who double locked the door behind her. Her first statement was, “Someone tried to kill me,” as she went into the bedroom and loaded up her Tokagypt pistol. “Could you get a double scotch Frau Blatz? I need to make a phone call.”

  “Shall I stay here tonight. Emily?”

  “God, would you?”

  “Emily, I survived World War II in Dachau, I’m half Jewish. I know fear.” And with that simple sentence, Frau Blatz became a lifelong friend.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

  “And you believe this is unrelated, Emily?” Colonel Beresford asked, somewhat befuddled at being rudely awakened in the middle of the night.

  “Yes, of course! But my point is that Stadler is still on the loose. This man is an intricate part of the Red Army Faction. He was splattered all over the wanted posters and his face visible on every poster board in American and German installations, yet he is still free. Why?”

  “Emily now you know I can’t answer that, it’s a matter of confidentiality. You know the type of thing, dear.”

  “Oh sod this, Colonel! The bugger almost killed me and he is a wanted man. What the hell is going on? Is he working for you? Does the Official Secrets Act afford him protection as well?”

  “Emily, I’ll send someone over to explain tomorrow. Try and get some rest now, dear.”

  “Colonel, let me make something clear, I’ll find your little ballet dancer. Don’t bother to send anyone ‘round, and don’t ever, and I mean this most seriously, ever make another request, official or otherwise for my services again.”

  Having spent most of the night focusing on every conversation she could remember with Ulla, Shallal, and Beresford over the past few years, Emily finally awakened, totally exhausted but cognizant of some very important facts. Shallal had decried Emily’s defense of Verena Stoltz some time ago. He had warned Emily that Stoltz was a “honey-trap” for the Red Army Faction and served as the nexus for arms deals. How, Emily now pondered, had he known that? He wasn’t part of the crowd that hung around the boutique. He didn’t even live in Heidelberg. While he did serve British intelligence, he must have had an informant in the terrorist inner sanctum. Could it have been Stadler, who had been an intricate part of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, who had in fact betrayed them?”

  Emily recalled the first time she met Stadler at a party she gave some years ago. He had, even then been close to Ulrike Meinhof, following her around like a puppy, echoing her phrases and agreeing with her every remark. Emily remembered that Ingeborg, his wife, had seemed threatened at the closeness of their relationship. Recalling the only instance Emily had seen Shallal and Stadler together, Stadler had been rowdy and obviously drunk when they had met at ‘The Catacombe’. He hadn’t appeared to recognize Shallal. But Shallal was getting his information from someone on the inside and it had to be from Stadler or someone who knew him well and also knew British Intelligence field officers. Axel Stadler, as Emily recalled had been openly hanging around town since the first bank robberies that had financed the Baader-Meinhof phenomena. He was also vehemently opposed to what he termed the Jewish occupation of Palestine and very pro-Arab resettlement into the lands taken by the Israelis during the 1967 war. Based on this, Emily knew he had connections with the Palestinian student underground in Europe, because he was always so well informed of what they were doing. The only other alternative was that Axel Stadler was also part of British Intelligence and under very deep cover.

  The fact remained, Emily pondered, that Verena Stoltz was out there somewhere on an Israeli hit list and Stoltz could be a very valuable asset to American, German, and British Intelligence. The only person who had half a chance of finding her before “Le Group” or the Israelis was Emily herself.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX

  Emily picked up the phone, called the local Mercedes-Benz dealer and talked her way into a loaner while they handled the repairs to her back fender. After eating breakfast and taking a quick shower, Emily drove her damaged car into their repair shop. Once the car situation was taken care of, she decided to drop by Ulla’s boutique to pick up a nice pashmina shawl for Frau Blatz, who was once more staying with Mason and Haley for the day. What an amazing woman, Emily thought. Frau Blatz had of course had been checked out by Emily’s intelligence sources just to make sure she wasn’t a plant, but her kindly neighbor had come through with flying colors. Fifty-five years old, Frau Blatz’ entire family had been killed in Dachau during the war. She had survived to return to the Germany she loved. A country that was still divided, whose past was deplored by every civilized nation in the western world.

  Margot Blatz believed that people who were undermined were susceptible. Such people, she knew, would accept anything the media told them and Hitler’s entourage had controlled the newspapers, broadcast stations and bought or pressured local politicians. What else could the people do but follow?

  Emily had listened in fascination when her neighbor told her about the war from her standpoint of another Germany. This Germany was one where women were abducted from their villages if they had the physical traits sought after by the fanatics. Margot Blatz’ girlfriends from the village; blonde, blue-eyed girls barely out of puberty were taken against their will to be mated with blonde, blue-eyed soldiers representing the future master race. The abducted girls were housed in birthing centers to be impregnated annually over a five year period, their bodies given no time to recover. Worse yet, the children born out of these unions were resettled in the Norse lands where the Reich believed the master race had begun. When their families objected and defended their daughters, they were shot in the village square. Margot Blatz, being dark haired and dark eyed had been left alone, until she had been identified as half Jewish by a fearful neighbor. She was then carted off with her family to what had been termed a “labor camp”. The officials had told her, “Arbeit macht frei” and when she considered what had happened to her blonde girlfriends she had thought herself lucky, until the reality of the labor camp set in. Labor didn’t liberate Margot Blatz and she had stayed alive only because she could sing. She had studied music and knew the works of Richard Wagner, the music beloved of the Fuehrer. Her family eventually met the fate of six million others, while she, a gifted and accomplished soprano entertained the camp’s officers and power brokers. Frau Blatz had not forgotten her life before the war, or her nationality, culture and ancestry.

  She had endured all that the Nazi Party had inflicted on all the German people, Jew and Gentile, and from the moment she was free she took a stand against their oppression. She defiantly returned to her country and demanded her life back while her peers fled to England, South America, or Israel. It was not acceptable for Margot Blatz to cower, there would be no more running. Germany would recover and would be rebuilt by survivors. She found suitable employment teaching music to children after the war and worked in Mark Twain High School at the American Army Base. She recovered her family’s belongings from their friends in the village of Sandhausen, near Heidelberg, and had reclaimed from the City all of their land that had been appropriated by the State. With the small profit she had made over the years Frau Blatz had leased an apartment in the building where Emily lived. Margot Blatz admired the young woman with the curly blonde hair and the two dark-eyed children who always looked so solemn. She had observed enough of the comings and goings in Emily’s apartment to know that
this young woman flirted with danger and when she had tried to check Emily’s background with friends in the new Deutsche Polizei she had been warned off under the pretext of Emily having some type of special “NATO” status. Conversely, Emily had investigated Frau Blatz’ background and found it to be quite impeccable. As a result the two women became fast friends, viewing their respective pasts on a “need to know” basis and always respecting each other’s right to privacy.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

  The boutique was empty, unusual for an August weekend and on this particular Sunday morning Ulla actually had time to talk over cappuccino brought in from the Italian coffee bar next door.

  “Ulla, has she contacted you yet?”

  “I gave her your message last night. Please, Emily, I can’t get further involved with this. You are not the only person looking for her.”

  “What?” Emily exclaimed, “Who else has been here?”

  “The researcher she was seeing. Actually he said he was half German, I mean his German is perfect, really hoch Deutsch, you know, rather like Oxford English, spoken only by the wealthy.”

  “You mean he sounds like he has plums in his mouth?”

  “Precisely. His name is Wolfgang von Roehle. We had rather a nice chat. His father is German, apparently well connected and has lived in England since the great war.”

  “ Ulla, you sound like my Granny. All wars are great! But I suppose you mean World War One. Didn’t you think it was strange that he was so conversant, or was he pumping you for information? What did you tell him?”

  “I told him she was going to Holland. I mean, he sounded like he wanted to get back with her. She’s in love with him. Did I do something wrong?”

  “What did he look like?”