Desert Fire

by David Hagberg

  “Do you think Walther is a Nazi?” Wadud laughed. “What do you want with his father?”

  “Investigator Roemer and I are working on a delicate case. It’s my belief that his government will use its knowledge of his father to … influence what he shares with us.”

  “So you’re looking for the old man. What will you do when you find him? Bring him here out of harm’s way?”

  “It’s possible,” she lied.

  “What would you do, Ilehnisa Kahled, if it were your father?”

  Leila started to answer, but Wadud went on.

  “I’ll be happy to supply information. But you’re going to have to go through channels. Happy hunting, and I sincerely mean it.” Wadud hung up.

  For a long moment Leila held the telephone to her ear. Wadud’s attitude was curious. Her father would have him fired if he became aware of it.

  “Jacob Wadud is a good man, Leila,” Zwaiter said. “I hope you don’t intend to make trouble for him.”

  “I’m not going to make trouble for him.” Leila felt terrible. “He said Walther Roemer was a peach of a fellow.”

  Zwaiter smiled. He looked out the window. The air was cold and clear. “It’s only been a few years, and yet here we are on the outside again. A lot of Westerners still think we’re trying to blow up the world.”

  “What are we doing here, Bassam? Where’s the rationale?”

  “Someone has to hold the Zionists in check.” He shrugged. “And the president is on a jihad. All we can do is follow him.” He got to his feet. “What do I need to know about this KwU business?”

  “The Germans are paranoid. Major Whalpol is running the show for the BND. He’s a tough one, but when this is over I’m going home. I’ve had it here.”

  “What about your father?”

  He has Colonel Habash, she wanted to say. “He’ll be all right, Bassam, better off with me out of his hair.”

  Zwaiter went to the door. “If you need any help, Leila, or perhaps just a shoulder to lean on, give me a call.”

  “I might just take you up on it.”

  Leila was glad to be rid of the project, and yet another part of her balked at walking away from something not finished. She’d never done that before.

  She returned to the problem of Walther Roemer and his father. After their confrontation, two burly sanatorium aides had escorted her out to her car. They had followed her for twenty miles.

  She should have returned. There was a great probability that Roemer had been moving his father out that very night. They would have been vulnerable. It would have been relatively simple to kidnap the old man, whisk him out of the country and get him back to Baghdad out of the German government’s reach.

  But she had not. There had been something in Roemer’s eyes, in the anguish in his voice, that had stayed her.

  42

  IT WAS AFTER four in the afternoon when she placed a call to the Simon Wiesenthal Institute in Vienna.

  “We’re very excited here, Fräulein Kahled, about Lotti Roemer and the possibility of his arrest,” a young man told her. “There has been a lot of uncertainty about your interest in helping us, but we’re grateful.”

  “What about his wife and children?”

  “Unimportant,” the aide replied. “His wife died some years after the war. There was a son, Walther, who is, as a matter of fact, a German federal investigator right there in Bonn.”

  “I know,” Leila said. “The son was never followed? Never watched?”

  “For a time, naturally. But the son had suffered the most from his father.”

  It sounded slipshod to Leila, knowing what she knew now. Roemer had apparently been aware of his father’s whereabouts all along. But then not every relative of every Nazi whom the Wiesenthal people were hunting could be watched twenty-four hours a day. It was simply impossible. Choices were made. Some of them wrong.

  She could hear the shuffling of papers at the other end. Then the aide was back on the line.

  “As a matter of fact, from what I’m reading, the son is a friend of Iraq. He has cooperated on a number of occasions with Detective Jacob Wadud. Perhaps if you telephoned him. But I’m curious, Fräulein Kahled. Do you suspect there is a connection now between the father and son?”

  “I don’t know,” Leila said and wondered why she lied. “I’m exploring all possibilities here.”

  “I see,” the aide said. “Well, we are wishing you the very best. There are a lot of people who would like to see the man put on trial finally.”

  “I’ll keep you informed.”

  “Please do.”

  Without dwelling on what she had learned so far (she was somewhat fearful of the directions her thoughts were already taking her), she gave the embassy operator Kata Zimmer’s name and asked that a number be found and a call put through. It took the embassy operator nearly a half hour to find the woman in Munich, where she worked as a classifications aide at the Bavarian National Museum. Leila had given a lot of thought to the way she would approach Roemer’s ex-wife.

  When the woman came on the line, Leila turned away from the phone. “I have her on the line now,” she said as if she were talking to someone else. Then, “Frau Zimmer?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m so sorry to bother you, but we are trying to locate Investigator Roemer. He left the city over the weekend and has not returned.”

  “Who is this?” Kata Zimmer demanded.

  “I am sorry, this is his office calling. Bonn.”

  “Why have you called me? I have no idea where he might be. Try his girlfriend, Gretchen Krause. She may be at work, at the Federal Parliament. I believe she is a translator.”

  “Thank you, Frau Zimmer. Apparently Investigator Roemer is out of the country. You would not know where he would be?”

  “No,” Kata Zimmer said curtly, and hung up.

  The operator had Gretchen Krause on the line within two minutes.

  “Fräulein Krause, this is Investigator Roemer’s office calling.”

  “What do you want?” Gretchen snapped.

  “We are trying to locate him. Apparently he’s gone out of town.”

  “He’s here in Bonn, all right. I just saw the bastard.”

  “Fräulein?”

  “I’ve moved out, you hear? We’ll probably file assault charges. The sonofabitch is never home. He’s never there when you want him. He’s off chasing some murder mystery somewhere or he’s running off to Bern.”

  “We understand he was in Bern over the weekend. Could you possibly give us a name there where we could reach him?”

  “There or Interlaken …” Gretchen said, but she cut herself off. “Who is this?”

  “His office.”

  “Let me talk to Rudi.”

  Rudi who? Leila wondered. “I am sorry, Fräulein Krause, but Rudi is not here at the moment.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Perhaps we could meet …” The line went dead.

  Interlaken. Another sanatorium, perhaps?

  It was late when Leila finally left the embassy. She drove across the river to the house she and her father occupied, but at the last moment, before entering through the gate, she turned around and went back to the Oberkassel.

  Roemer’s car was parked in front of his apartment building. She parked behind it, shut off the headlights and lit a cigarette.

  For half an hour she sat there, smoking, listening to the radio and staring up at his apartment, all the while wondering just what she was doing here. Her opinion of him had undergone a curious change, one over which she had no control.

  What would she say to him if she went up? You’re all right, but I want your father so that you can be insulated.

  Finally she turned on the headlights and drove off. The confrontation between them would come, but not just yet. In the meantime, at the back of her mind was the thought of Dr. Azziza lying in wait in Switzerland. What in the name of Allah could she do?

  43

  ROEMER SPENT A res
tless evening alone in his nearly bare apartment, made more unsettling by Leila Kahled’s appearance on the street below. He had watched her car for twenty minutes, until she pulled away. She was the most dangerous person in Germany to his father’s safety.

  Manning telephoned near midnight to say that he and his team were on their way out to Whalpol’s house in Bad Godesberg. They agreed to meet behind the ornate town hall before moving in.

  Before he left, Roemer checked his gun to make sure that the ejector slide moved freely. Whalpol was a dangerous man.

  Traffic was light as Roemer drove down from the Oberkassel, crossed the river on the Konrad Adenauer Bridge and worked his way back up to the Bad Godesberg town hall. Manning’s Cortina was parked behind a black windowless van in a rear courtyard where town hall officials normally parked during the day.

  Roemer pulled up behind the Cortina and doused his lights. Manning and another man got out of the car and came back just as Roemer was climbing out. He recognized the second man as Sergeant Jacobs, Manning’s pinched-faced assistant.

  They all shook hands.

  “We can pick up his line from the junction box,” Manning said. “There’s one in a tunnel a half-block away.”

  “How many in the van?” Roemer asked Manning.

  “I drew a couple of techies from Division. Mundt and Achmann. I want to keep this to a minimum.”

  “We’re going to have to move fast. If he goes to ground before we get anything concrete, we’ll never stop him.”

  “We’re going to get the bastard, no doubt of it.”

  “But I want to know why he killed those women. I want to know what he thought he could accomplish.”

  “The bastard is crazy,” Manning said.

  “Probably.” But Roemer wondered. Whalpol seemed ruthless, cynical, but not unbalanced.

  “It will take my people fifteen minutes to identify Whalpol’s line and place the tap,” Manning said. “They’ll rig a small, narrow-beam transmitter that will bring the signals back to the van.”

  “Good,” Roemer said. “Sergeant Jacobs can stay with the van once they’re set, while you and I go over to the house for a quick look. Let’s go.”

  They drove the half dozen blocks to the telephone junction box, located in a tunnel beneath a manhole cover in the sidewalk just off the Hinterholerstrasse. Whalpol’s house was around the corner, out of sight.

  Sergeant Jacobs and the two technicians from the van hurried across the street, pried open the manhole cover and disappeared into the tunnel.

  Manning offered Roemer a cigarette and then lit one for himself. “All this is for money, isn’t it?” the KP lieutenant said.

  “It would appear so.” Roemer hunched up his coat collar against the chill. The residential street was very quiet.

  Manning’s face was pale in the light from the street lamp at the corner. “What if Whalpol isn’t working alone? Have you considered that?”

  “He has his own people. He answers to Pullach.”

  “But what happens if the killings were part of a government operation? A cover-up to make sure their little project out at KwU remains safe?”

  The thought had crossed Roemer’s mind. “I don’t know, Manning, I simply don’t know.”

  Manning looked away. “Do you ever get the feeling that we’re in the wrong business?”

  We’re a nation of laws, Colonel Legler had said. But the legacy of fifty years ago was still too close to the surface, with the recent anti-foreigner riots, and it was frightening that something similar could be starting again.

  “No,” Roemer answered.

  “Why don’t you just call Pullach? Talk to the head of the BND? Make him see?”

  “Without proof it would be worse than useless, Manning.”

  Sergeant Jacobs crawled up out of the tunnel and came across the street. His eyes sparkled. “We’ve got his line. He’s definitely home, talking on the phone right now.”

  “With whom?” Manning asked.

  “Don’t know yet. But it sounded as if he’s mounting a surveillance operation. Mundt is monitoring it, but we won’t have the recorders set for another few minutes.”

  They followed Jacobs back to the manhole.

  Mundt, a headset pressed against one ear, motioned for silence. “He just hung up. Sounded as if he was talking to a mobile number. Something about a safe house.”

  “Where?” Roemer asked.

  “Sorry, sir, but they didn’t say. Apparently they both understood the location. But it sounded as if the mobile number was on his way there now.”

  Mundt again held up his hand for silence. “He’s dialing,” the technician said. “Two.”

  Roemer pulled out a notebook and pen and wrote down the numbers.

  “Three. Seven. Zero. One. Two.”

  Roemer recognized the number: Chief Prosecutor Schaller’s. He stuffed the notebook in his pocket, hurriedly climbed down into the close confines of the tunnel and took the headset from Mundt. The number was ringing.

  Schaller answered. “Yes?”

  “It’s Ludwig.”

  “Where are you calling from?” Schaller sounded upset.

  “I’m in town. Did you talk to Hans?”

  “This afternoon. Roemer is convinced that you murdered both of those women. He was at your house.”

  “I know. The monitors were on. He took one of my shoes.”

  “They were your footprints, evidently, in the apartment.”

  “It was a silly mistake on my part. But it will probably work out for the best in the end.”

  “What in God’s name are you talking about? Do you realize what kind of trouble this could bring? Helmut Kohl is damned upset, he calls here four times a day.”

  “In two months it will be all over, so don’t worry.”

  “Two months!” Schaller exploded. “What if there is another killing?”

  “There won’t be, I can guarantee it.”

  There was a long silence on the line. When Schaller came back his voice sounded strained. “Legler seems to think you have the motive.”

  Whalpol laughed, the sound harsh in the headset. “Don’t be an ass.”

  “If Roemer brings him proof, any kind of proof, he’ll get all the backing he needs.”

  “Roemer can’t possibly come up with proof of something that isn’t so, Ernst. But I don’t want him diverted. Don’t interfere with him. He’s keeping that Mukhabarat bitch out of my hair.”

  “What are you talking about now?”

  “Roemer went down to see his father at the sanatorium. She followed him. If Roemer is smart he’s already moved the old man.”

  “Where?”

  “God only knows, Ernst. But the two of them will keep each other busy. Busier once Roemer gets wind of the fact she’s got help.”

  Roemer’s grip tightened on the headset.

  “Khodr Azziza, Hussein’s top hit man, went to ground in Baghdad more than twenty-four hours ago. Word is, he’s out of the country. My guess would be Switzerland. He’s one bad bastard. Frankly I didn’t think Leila played that rough. But once she finds Roemer’s father she’ll call Azziza in like a guided missile.”

  Again there was a silence on the line. Roemer glanced up. Manning and Jacobs were staring down at him. Roemer held up his hand for silence. His heart was aching. No matter what happened now, it seemed that time had finally run out for his father. He must not be dragged back to Baghdad. A bullet in his head would be better for everyone concerned.

  “Do you know who killed those girls?” Schaller asked.

  “I think so.”

  “Who is it?”

  “It will not happen again. I will see to it. In any event you don’t want to know.”

  “Will he be brought to justice?”

  “That would be impossible, Ernst.”

  “One of the Iraqis, then?”

  “I must go now, but keep me informed about our friend Roemer.”

  “I did what you wished, Ludwig, I told Sherif
that Roemer was on the case, and that he suspected the BND.”

  “Good,” Whalpol said.

  “Roemer should be told.”

  “Absolutely not. I forbid it.”

  “Sarah Razmarah’s murder can be blamed on that Iraqi who shot himself. But the newswoman. Television One will never let it rest.”

  “We’ll find a scapegoat. It won’t be too difficult,” Whalpol said.

  “Just like that? I sincerely thought we had risen above such things.”

  “No government can rise above such unfortunate happenings. It is not pleasant, Ernst, but such things at times become necessary.”

  Schaller started to say something, but the connection was broken.

  Roemer continued holding the headset against his ear. If not Whalpol, then who? One of the Iraqis, after all? Or was Whalpol merely continuing to cover his own tracks?

  “He is off the line now, sir,” Achmann said.

  Roemer handed him the headset. “Rig up your transmitter. I want every call recorded.”

  He climbed out of the tunnel and stood facing Manning, angry. Even if Whalpol had not murdered those women, he knew who did and planned to protect the killer. He had manipulated Sarah Razmarah into coming to Germany, to her death. He had sidetracked Joan Waldmann. And he had, in effect, engineered the coming confrontation between Leila and Roemer’s father.

  “Who was he talking with?” Manning asked.

  “I’ll tell you on the way,” Roemer said. “We’ll take my car; leave yours for Jacobs.”

  “Watch yourself,” Manning said to Jacobs, and then he and Roemer went across the street, climbed into Roemer’s car and took off.

  “What happened?” Manning demanded.

  Roemer didn’t answer until they pulled around the corner and parked, the headlights off. At the far end of the block stood Whalpol’s house. Lights shone in the upstairs windows. Whalpol’s Mercedes was parked in front.

  “He was talking with Chief Prosecutor Schaller. He knows who killed the girls.”

  “It’s a cover-up. He’s lying.”

  “He told Schaller there would be no more killings.”

  “Who else would have the motive?”

  “I don’t know,” Roemer said.