by Dan Pollock
*
At five-thirty the following afternoon, the day before the conference, Marcus Jolly was shopping for a pair of shoes on Wittenberg’s main thoroughfare, Schloss-strasse. He was looking for something plain, low-heeled and very large.
After browsing several stores without success, he revised his plan and selected some white, low-top Adidases in the Modesalon on the Marktplatz. He had them wrapped, then walked east on Collegienstrasse to the little bookstore where Charlotte had arranged to wait for him so he could pick out a present for her.
She wasn’t there.
There were several other bookstores on the market square, but she wasn’t in any of them. Marcus found this disturbing. He cut diagonally across the square, scattering pigeons and deranging a semicircle of Asian tourists who were pointing and clicking at Luther’s statue.
In front of the Goldener Adler a young man with spiky hair was lounging indolently on his parked motorcycle, apparently watching the passing parade. It was, of course, Frank, the local hoodlum who had haunted this particular piece of sidewalk ever since he’d first laid eyes upon Charlee. The sophisticated charms of the older Western woman had apparently affected the primitive brain, as well as the heart, of the German youth. He now seemed to consider himself her knight errant, and viewed Marcus with open hostility. Infuriatingly, Charlotte not only tolerated but encouraged the adoration; Marcus considered it sickening.
“Frank, did you see Charlotte?”
“You mean like today, dude?”
“Yeah, dude, like today. Like in the last five or ten minutes?”
“Hey, I guess I don’t remember.” Frank snickered.
Marcus permitted himself a fleeting vision of the damage he could inflict on the cretinous cycle-Nazi, given about five seconds and no witnesses. Then he pushed past him under the little hotel marquee with its Golden Eagle plaque. Inside the low-vaulted lobby he nodded briefly to the desk clerk, then hurried up the dark stairs beside the two ground-floor restaurants. At the landing, he turned sharply, then deliberately slowed his steps along the dingy corridor to their room, which he opened with his own key.
*
Hearing the clatter on the stairs, Charlotte thought it must be Frank. Earlier on the street she had bid the obviously enamored young tough good-bye, since she and Jack were due to check out quite early in the morning. Frank had immediately offered to take her to Potsdam on the back of his motorcycle.
“And what about Jack?” she had laughed. “What will we do with him?”
“Lose the dude, Charlie. He’s a bad mother.”
Again she’d laughed, then reached and brushed the spiky hair. The tender gesture had seemed to devastate Frank. His face had started to crumple. Then he’d turned and run off. She hoped he’d come back to say good-bye.
But the pounding footsteps abruptly ceased. Puzzled, she turned around to face the door just as it opened to reveal Jack Sanderson. He hesitated a second on the threshold, watching her replace the telephone receiver in its cradle, before coming in.
“You weren’t at the bookstore. I got worried.”
“I’m sorry, Jack. I had to make a call. You remember that man who called me in Le Lavandou?”
“Your boyfriend Taras, sure. You been calling him?”
“I had to, Jack. I promised him I would. I’m sorry if it looks like I’m sneaking off, but I didn’t want you to know about it. You’ve been so...”
“That’s all right, I understand. I’m just not your soulmate. I’ve been told that before. So what did he have to say?”
“Nothing. He’d checked out of his hotel. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. I... I wanted our last night to be special.”
“Well, there’s still time.”
“Of course there is. And we’ll make the most of every minute. Oh, Jack, I forgot you went shopping for me. Can I open it?”
“Later.”
She went to him, kissed his cheek. “You’re really a pussycat, you know? But I have one more favor to ask you. Would you mind terribly if I made a couple more phone calls? Maybe you could prowl around awhile longer.”
“Go ahead.” He settled on the bed, clasping his hands behind his head. “Since you’re not talking to Taras, you don’t mind if I listen, do you?”
“No. That’s fine.” She picked up the phone, asked the hotel switchboard to dial another Washington number, hung up. “It’ll take a few minutes. They’ll ring me back.”
She and Jack chatted about dinner plans. Since the afternoon remained pleasantly warm, they decided to try an outdoor cafe on the square in preference to either of the Adler’s gloomy ground-floor restaurants. Perhaps they could find that Hungarian Riesling recommended by the desk clerk. Then the phone rang. Her American call was ready.
Jack asked: “Is that your editor, then?”
“No, I’m calling the CIA. The Deputy Director of Intelligence is a good friend of Taras, as well as one of his bosses. I’m sure he’ll know how to reach him.”
“Oh.”
Charlotte was just saying hello to the DDI’s secretary, when out of the corner of her eye she noticed that Jack was no longer on the bed but moving swiftly toward her. She glanced up in surprise—just as his hand came down on the cradle, cutting her connection.
Her puzzlement flared into anger. And then, as she found herself staring into the blazing eyes of a man she did not know, anger was swept aside by sudden and savage fear.
*
At CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, Rhonda Hartnell, executive secretary to the DDI, stared at her phone. She wasn’t accustomed to callers hanging up, especially from overseas. They must have been disconnected. She had been on her feet, ready to leave for lunch, when the phone rang. Now she sat down, pressed the intercom and told her boss what had happened.
“From Germany, huh? But you didn’t catch the name of the town, or who was calling?”
“No, but it’ll be in the computer. There was something funny though. I only heard her voice for only a second, no more than ‘hello,’ but I recognized it. I know I’ve heard it before.”
“Did you hear anything odd, before the cutoff?”
“No, nothing. What do you want me to do?”
“She’ll call back, whoever she is, but it may take awhile for her to get through, depending on where she’s calling from. Don’t worry about it, Ron. Leslie will put her through to me. You go on to lunch.”
“Thanks.”
Rhonda jotted the time on her pad, for reference in case she should need to check the computer logs. Then she gathered up her purse and a shopping bag with two blouses she wanted to exchange and headed off down the corridor with a wave to Leslie to cover her phone.
But darn it! She couldn’t get her mind off the distinctive sound of that voice. Maybe it would come to her.
Thirty-Two
Charlotte Walsh was helpless, on her back, naked, her mouth sealed with wide duct tape, arms pulled painfully over her head, wrists and ankles taped together and tied to the bedframe with sashcord from the windows.
But she was alive, and she could see. Across the little room the monster sat with his back to her at the dressing table, stripped to his shorts, experimenting in the mirror with her makeup kit.
After he had disconnected her call to the CIA, it had taken Charlotte a couple of bewildered seconds to realize she wasn’t dealing with a jealous and suddenly enraged lover, but something far more frightening. She had sought his eyes in desperate appeal—and found herself confronting an alien predator.
“Jack Sanderson,” the considerate and indefatigable lover, was gone, discarded like a rubber mask by this other cruel man, who had been there all along, hiding behind the easy grin, stalking and trapping her for some terrifying purpose not yet revealed. What a vulnerable, pathetic fool she had been—from that first instant in the bookstore in Le Lavandou!
And how easily he had reeled her in.
As the enormity of it had seized her, she had fought him with all her strength. But he had c
ountered with an offhand skill that rendered her struggles childishly futile. One hand had moved swiftly from the telephone to stifle her screams, while the other circled her neck, his thumb finding and pressing the carotid artery.
She had blacked out.
And had come to on the bed like this—bound and gagged and flooded with terror. The sky out the window was evening blue, the shabby room illumined only by the tarnished brass lamp on the dresser, the cracked parchment shade tilted to throw light on the mirror where her captor worked. As Charlotte had moaned against the muzzling tape and thrashed against her restraints, his voice had floated back to her, calm and tinged with mockery:
“You know, if you keep groaning and bouncing around like that, the restaurant patrons downstairs will only think we’re doing another one of our horizontal slam-dances. There, that’s better.
“Now, I suppose you’re beginning to suspect that I’ve lied to you. Women are always so suspicious, aren’t they, especially newswomen? Well, of course you’re right. I’m not really over here scouting European trade fairs for American mail-order firms. I’m an old friend of your lover, actually. My name is Marcus. Surely he’s mentioned me?”
The man who now called himself Marcus turned his head and flashed his Jack Sanderson smile. He had toweled off most of the makeup, apparently unsatisfied with the effect. Charlotte shook her head.
“He didn’t mention me? I’m shocked. Taras and I were so close for so long. You know, Charlie, if only you hadn’t tried so persistently to get in touch with the Cossack, as I call him, we’d be having a nice dinner right now. Still, that would only have bought you an extra hour or two. I’m afraid things were bound to end badly between us.”
Then he had told her—as though it were some ingenious business coup he was plotting—of his plan to assassinate Alois Rybkin. The brutal inference drawn by Charlotte was that she had been scouted and selected by Marcus mainly for her journalistic credentials, which could give him access to the Cecilienhof, and her stature, which would allow him to fit into some of her clothing, including the wig she used when she didn’t have time to fix her hair for impromptu TV appearances.
Marcus didn’t mention why he wanted to kill the Soviet head of state. Not that Charlotte cared a damn about his motives, but after spending nearly a week with the man and then discovering him to be a total and terrifying stranger, she wanted desperately to find some clue as to what he might do next. Obviously he was crazy, even if he didn’t act like a political fanatic. But was this just another demented game he was playing with her, or was he actually intending to go through with it? If so, surely he would be caught or killed. But then what would happen to her?
Her frail hope—which she repeated ceaselessly like a rosary in her mind—was that he would let her live. Why not? Why couldn’t he just take her clothes and press pass, walk out the door, and leave her here, tied up, to be discovered by the chambermaid next morning? By then, her knowing his identity and plans wouldn’t matter. He’d have already made his attempt, succeeded or failed. And surely, despite the cruel mockery he now displayed, he must have some residue of feeling for her, or for the pleasures they had shared together. If he meant to kill her, wouldn’t he already have done it?
Dear Lord, please let him be merciful.
The prayer brought a moment’s respite from her surging adrenaline panic. Still, she wished he hadn’t been so casual about giving her his real name, if that’s what it was.
Heavy footsteps reverberated suddenly in the stairwell, floorboards creaked in the corridor. An insistent knock rattled the door.
Charlotte saw the muscles tighten across Marcus’ bare back. Without getting up, he called out:
“Wer ist dort?”
“Frank,” came the answer. “I got something special for Charlie. Come on, dude, I want to give it to her!”
“Charlie is sick. Leave it outside. I’ll give it to her.”
“Hey, dude, like I got to say good-bye to a foxy lady.”
“I told you, Frank, she’s sick. Krank, verstehe? Charlie is in the bathroom, die Toilette. Now please, just go away.”
“No, I wait till she’s better. I be out here, dude.”
“Christ!” Marcus whirled around, his striking features contorted by anger, obviously directed at her for having encouraged the young Wittenberger. “Hold on, Frank.”
Marcus knelt beside the bed and whispered urgently: “Listen to me carefully. If you want that lovesick little Nazi to live, tell him you’re too sick to come to the door. Tell him to leave whatever the hell he’s brought outside. Thank him and tell him auf Wiedersehen. But no endearments. And if you try to cry out for help, or I even think you’re about to, I’ll strangle you, then kill loverboy. Got that? You may nod your head.”
She nodded.
“I’m going to remove the tape, but I’m going to be right next to you.” He turned to the door, called out: “Frank, here’s Charlie. She wants to tell you something.”
He tore the tape off painfully. She spoke hoarsely, with Marcus’ menacing face hovering inches above her, yet her fear displaced by sudden tearfulness as she thought of the devoted young man just outside: “Frank, I’m very sick... I... I can’t see you now... Thank you for coming... You’re a dear.” Then she winced as Marcus’ hand vised around her upper arm. Oh Christ, she’d forgotten; no endearments! “Auf Wiedersehen, Frank. Now please go away.”
“Okay, sure, Charlie, but then I come here back again. I rev up Das Vampir and get my sister husband Rolf, he is a real out-of-sight Doktor. He fix you real good, Charlie. You wait!”
“No...” But her voice faltered.
They heard his bootsteps retreating down the corridor.
Marcus slapped the tape back on her mouth, charged to the door, threw it open and shouted into the stairwell: “Frank, come back. Charlie wants to see you now, right away!”
No, Frank! Charlotte thought with all her might. Don’t come back! But she heard the quick returning steps, leaping two stairs at a time.
Marcus stepped quickly back from the door as Frank burst into the room. A bouquet of yellow flowers dangled from his hand as he stood slack-jawed, registering painful confusion at what he saw—the woman he idolized, stripped naked, tied to the bed, mouth sealed with shiny gray tape. Charlotte tried to warn him with her eyes, but the leather-jacketed youth was far too slow in turning to confront Marcus.
Not that it would have made any difference, as Charlotte realized in the brutal ensuing seconds. For all his macho trappings, the German youth was no match for Marcus’ lethal expertise. Frank dropped his bouquet and charged the older man. But Marcus simply stood there in his shorts, grinning. Then, with the insouciance of a matador, Marcus doubled his knee to the young man’s groin and danced aside as his opponent toppled to the floor. Even before the youth had landed, Marcus’ edged hand flashed down like a machete above the studded leather collar.
Charlotte heard the horrible sound of that blow and reacted viscerally, but the worst was to come. Marcus sprang astride his facedown victim, wrapped his right hand around the spike-haired skull, braced his left forearm against the back of Frank’s neck, then wrenched violently. Charlotte heard that sound as well—the horrid crepitation of Frank’s cervical vertebrae being whipsnapped. She saw the young man’s body convulse on the threadbare carpet, then lie still beside the scattered flowers.
Nausea erupted from deep within her.
Marcus heard the glottal warning, leaped across the room and ripped her gag free barely in time to save her from strangulation. Racked and writhing, yet unable to rise up because of her restraints, Charlotte vomited all over the bedclothes and herself, again and again, till she fell back in wretched exhaustion. With her head hammering, she shut her eyes tight against the foulness that now slimed her face—and against the sight of the broken body of the boy who had come to give her flowers, and given his life instead.
*
The cafe bar of the Hotel Potsdam was awash in journalists, print and electro
nic, from all over the globe. Their faces were flushed, their voices commingled in a polyglot roar as glasses were refilled and Gemütlichkeit reigned supreme. They were warriors before the battle, mercenaries who had fought in many campaigns in many unlikely places, and now gathered five deep behind the long bar and around the little tables to compare wounds and swap war stories.
Taras only glanced in, then moved on toward the lobby, having recognized from a distance several Washington newsfolk he knew fairly well. He avoided the scene for a couple of reasons.
First, and mostly painfully, because it reminded him of Charlie. She belonged in that milieu, or in one of the more select collegial gatherings that would doubtless be taking place tonight along Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm. Also, Taras didn’t know how to respond to inevitable questions from any of Charlie’s friends or colleagues who didn’t know they’d broken up, and who might now be wondering where in hell she was.
But as he walked away, it also occurred to him that he felt like getting drunk himself. Not just pleasantly or raucously inebriated like this beer-bourbon-and-scotch crowd, but White Dynamite, falling-down-in-the-snowbank, Slavic drunk, like that night in Khabarovsk.
Taras was swamped with despair, or maybe just self-pity. It was hard to tell anymore. In the sick welter of his emotions, only his cherished hatred for the Cowboy and thirst for revenge stood out with any clarity.
There was still no break in the search for Marcus and Charlie. Only dead-ends, as Taras had feared. He had just come back from dinner with Bob Strotkamp, who was increasingly preoccupied with his security preparations for the next day’s conference. In fact, as they had parted outside a Berlin rathskeller, Taras had come away with the definite impression that the CIA man was only persevering with the search in order to locate the GRU assassin, not out of any concern for Charlie’s safety. Once during dinner Strotkamp had even commented that, despite everything, Charlotte might still be enjoying her little fling, in no particular danger from Marcus, and would probably show up for work tomorrow at Potsdam.