The Holcroft Covenant

by Robert Ludlum

  "Back? From where?"

  "I'm not sure that's any of your business."

  "For God's sake, I've traveled over three thousand miles to see you! It's dreadfully important. Now where were you?"

  The Englishman's breathing was audible over the

  phone; the man's intensity seemed somehow related to fear. "I'm flattered you came all that distance to see me, but it still doesn't give you the right to ask personal questions-----"

  "I have every right!" broke in Baldwin. "I spent twenty years with MI Six, and we have a great deal to talk about! You have no idea what you're doing. No one does but me."

  "You what? We what?"

  "Let me put it this way. Cancel Geneva. Cancel it, Mr. Holcroft, until we've talked!"

  "Geneva? . . ." Noel felt suddenly sick to his stomach. How would this Englishman know about Geneva? How could he know?

  A light flickered outside the window; someone 'in an apartment directly across the courtyard was lighting a cigarette. Despite his agitation, Holcroft's eyes were drawn to it.

  "There's someone at the door," Baldwin said. "Stay on the phone. I'll get rid of whoever it is and be right back."

  Noel could hear Baldwin put the telephone down, then the sound of a door opening and indistinguishable voices. Across the courtyard, in the window, a match was struck again, illuminating the long blond hair of a woman behind a sheer curtain.

  Holcroft realized there was silence on the line; he could hear no voices now. Moments went by; the Englishman did not return.

  "Baldwin? Baldwin, where are you? Baldwin!"

  For a third time a match flared in the window across the way. Noel stared at it; it seemed unnecessary. He could see the glow of a cigarette in the blond woman's mouth. And then he saw what was in her other hand, silhouetted behind the sheer curtain: a telephone. She was holding a telephone to her ear and looking over at his window — looking, he was sure, at him.

  "Baldwin? Where the hell are you?"

  There was a click; the line went dead.

  "Baldwin!"

  The woman in the window slowly lowered the telephone, paused for a moment, and walked away, out of sight.

  Holcroft stared at the window, then at the telephone in his hand. He waited until he got the active line, then redialed the St. Regis.

  "I'm sorry, sir, room four-eleven's telephone seems to be out of order. We'll send someone up right away. May I have your number and we'll give it to Mr. Baldwin."

  ... your phone was out of order....

  Something was happening that Noel did not understand. He knew only that he would not leave his name or number with the operator at the St. Regis. He hung up and looked again at the window across the courtyard. Whatever light there had been was gone. The window was dark; he could see only the white of the curtain.

  He pushed himself away from the windowsill and wandered aimlessly about the room, around familiar possessions in unfamiliar locations. He was not sure what to do; he supposed he should see if anything was missing. Nothing seemed to be, but it was difficult to tell.

  The telephone buzzed: the intercom from the lobby switchboard. He answered it.

  "It's Jack, Mr. Holcroft. I just spoke to Ed and Louie. Neither of 'em know anything about anyone going up to your place. They're honest guys. They wouldn't screw around. None of us would."

  "Thanks, Jack. I believe you."

  "You want me to call the police?"

  "No." Noel tried to sound casual. "I have an idea someone at the office was playing a joke. A couple of the fellows have keys."

  "I didn't see anybody. Neither did Ed or — "

  "It's okay, Jack," interrupted Holcroft. "Forget it. The night I left we had a party. One or two stayed over." It was all Noel could think of to say.

  Suddenly it occurred to him that he had not looked in his bedroom. He went there now, his hand reaching for the light switch on the wall.

  He expected it, but it was still a shock. The disorien-tation was now somehow complete.

  Again, each piece of furniture had been moved to a different position. The bed was the first thing that struck his eye; it was oddly frightening. No part of it touched the wall. Instead, it was in the center of the room, iso-

  lated. His bureau stood in front of a window; a small writing desk was dwarfed against the expanse of the right wall. As had happened minutes ago, when first he'd seen the living room, the images of what his bedroom looked like three days ago kept flashing before him, replaced by the strangeness of what he now observed.

  Then he saw it and gasped. Hanging down from the ceiling, strapped together with dull black tape, was his second telephone, the extension cord snaking up the wall and across the ceiling to the hook that held it.

  It was spinning slowly.

  The pain shifted from his stomach to his chest; his eyes were transfixed on the sight, on the suspended instrument revolving slowly in midair. He was afraid to look beyond, but he knew he had to; he had to understand.

  And when he did, his breath came back to him. The phone was in the direct path of his bathroom door and the door was open. He saw the curtains billowing in the window above the basin. The steady stream of cold wind was making the telephone spin.

  He walked quickly into the bathroom to shut the window. As he was about to pull the curtains, he saw a brief flash of illumination outside; a match had been struck in another window across the courtyard, the flare startling in the darkness. He looked out.

  There was the woman again! The blond-haired woman, her upper body silhouetted beyond another set of sheer curtains. He stared at the figure, mesmerized by it.

  She turned as she had turned before, and walked away as she had walked away minutes ago. Out of sight. And the dim light in the window went out.

  What was happening? What did it mean? Things were being orchestrated to frighten him. But by whom and for what purpose? And what had happened to Peter Baldwin, Esq., he of the intense voice and the command to cancel Geneva? Was Baldwin a part of the terror, or was he a victim of it?

  Victim . . . victim? It was an odd word to use, he thought. Why should there be any victims? And what did Baldwin mean when he said he had "spent twenty years with MI Six"?

  MI Six? A branch, of British intelligence. If he remembered correctly, MI Five was the section that dealt

  with domestic matters; Six concerned itself with problems outside the country. The English CIA, as it were.

  Good God! Did the British know about the Geneva document? Was British intelligence aware of the massive theft of thirty years ago? On the surface, it would appear so. ... Yet that was not what Peter Baldwin had implied.

  You have no idea what you're doing. No one does but me.

  And then there was silence, and the line went dead.

  Holcroft walked out of the bathroom and paused beneath the suspended telephone; it was barely moving now, but it had not stopped. It was an ugly sight, made macabre by the profusion of dull black tape that held the instrument together. As if the phone had been mummified, never to be used again.

  He continued toward the bedroom door, then instinctively stopped and turned. Something had caught his eye, something he had not noticed before. The center drawer of the small writing desk was open. He looked closer. Inside the drawer was a sheet of paper.

  His breathing stopped as he stared at the page below.

  It couldn't be. It was insane. The single sheet of paper was brownish yellow. With age. It was identical to the page that had been kept in a vault in Geneva for thirty years. The letter filled with threats written by fanatics who revered a martyr named Heinrich Clausen. The writing was the same; the odd Germanic printing of English words, the ink that was faded but still legible. •

  And what was legible was astonishing. For it had been written more than thirty years ago.

  NOEL CLAUSEN-HOLCROFT

  NOTHING IS AS IT WAS FOR YOU. NOTHING

  CAN EVER BE THE SAME. . . .

  Before he read further, Noel picked up an ed
ge of the page. It crumbled under his touch.

  Oh, God! It was written thirty years ago!

  And that fact made the remainder of the message frightening.

  THE PAST WAS PREPARATION, THE FUTURE IS COMMITTED TO THE MEMORY OF A MAN AND HIS DREAM. HIS WAS AN ACT OF DARING AND BRIL-

  LIANCE IN A WORLD GONE MAD. NOTHING MUST STAND IN THE WAY OF THAT DREAM'S FULFILLMENT.

  WE ARE THE SURVIVORS OF WOLFSSCHANZE. THOSE OF US WHO LIVE WILL DEDICATE OUR LIVES AND BODIES TO THE PROTECTION OF THAT MAN'S DREAM. IT WILL BE FULFILLED, FOR IT IS ALL THAT IS LEFT. AN ACT OF MERCY THAT WILL SHOW THE WORLD THAT WE WERE BETRAYED, THAT WE WERE NOT AS THE WORLD BELIEVED US TO BE.

  WE, THE MEN OF WOLFSSCHANZE, KNOW WHAT THE BEST OF US WERE. AS HEINRICH CLAUSEN KNEW.

  IT IS NOW UP TO YOU, NOEL CLAUSEN-HOLCROFT, TO COMPLETE WHAT YOUR FATHER BEGAN. YOU ARE THE WAY. YOUR FATHER WISHED IT SO.

  MANY WILL TRY TO STOP YOU. TO THROW OPEN THE FLOODGATES AND DESTROY THE DREAM. BUT THE MEN OF WOLFSSCHANZE DO SURVIVE. YOU HAVE OUR WORD THAT ALL THOSE WHO INTERFERE WELL BE STOPPED THEMSELVES.

  ANY WHO STAND IN YOUR WAY, WHO TRY TO DISSUADE YOU, WHO TRY TO DECEIVE YOU WITH LIES, WILL BE ELIMINATED.

  AS YOU AND YOURS WILL BE SHOULD YOU HESITATE. OR FAIL.

  THIS IS OUR OATH TO YOU.

  Noel grabbed the paper out of the drawer; it fell apart in his hand. He let the fragments fall to the floor.

  "Goddamned maniacs!" He slammed the drawer shut and ran out of the bedroom. Where was the telephone? Where the hell was the goddamned telephone? By the window — that was it; it was on the kitchen table by the fucking window!

  "Maniacs!" he screamed again at no one. But not really at no one: at a man in Geneva who had been on a train bound for Zurich. Maniacs might have written that page of garbage thirty years ago, but now, thirty years later, other maniacs had delivered it! They had broken into his home, invaded his privacy, touched his belongings. . . . God knows what else, he thought, thinking of Peter Baldwin, Esq. A man who had traveled thousands of

  miles to see him, and talk with him . . . silence, a click, a dead telephone line.

  He looked at his watch. It was almost one o'clock in the morning. What was it in Zurich? Six? Seven? The banks in Switzerland opened at eight La Grande Banque de Genève had a branch in Zurich; Manfredi would be there.

  The window. He was standing in front of the window where he had stood only minutes ago, waiting for Baldwin to come back on the phone. The window. Across the courtyard in the opposite apartment. The three brief flares of a match . . . the blond-haired woman in the window!

  Holcroft put his hand in his pocket to make sure he had his keys. He did. He ran to the door, let himself out, raced for the elevator, and pushed the button. The indicator showed that the car was on the tenth floor; the arrow did not move.

  God damn it!

  He ran to the staircase and started down, taking the steps two at a time. He reached the ground floor and dashed out into the lobby.

  "Jesus, Mr. Holcroft!" Jack stared at him. "You scared the shit out of me!"

  "Do you know the doorman in the next building?" shouted Noel.

  "Which oner

  "Christ! That one!" Holcroft gestured to the right

  That's three-eighty. Yeah, sure."

  "Come on with me!"

  "Hey, wait a minute, Mr. Holcroft. I can't leave here."

  "We'll only be a minute. There's twenty dollars in it for you."

  "Only a minute...."

  The doorman at three-eighty greeted them, understanding quickly that he was to give accurate information to Jack's friend.

  "I'm sorry, sir, but there's no one in that apartment Hasn't been for almost three weeks. But I'm afraid it's been rented; the new tenants will be coming in. ..."

  "There is someone there!" said Noel, trying to control himself. "A blond-haired woman. I've got to find out who she is."

  "A blond-haired woman? Kind of medium height, sort of good-looking, smokes a lot?"

  "Yes, that's the one! Who is she?"

  "You live in your place long, mister?"

  "What?"

  "I mean, have you been there a long time?"

  "What's that got to do with anything?"

  "I think maybe you've been drinking...."

  "What the hell are you talking about?! Who is that woman?"

  "Not is, mister. Was. The blond woman you're talking about was Mrs. Palatyne. She died a month ago."

  Noel sat in the chair in front of the window, staring across the courtyard. Someone was trying to drive him crazy. But why? It did not make sense! Fanatics, maniacs from thirty years ago, had sprung across three decades, commanding younger, unknown troops thirty years later. Again, why?

  He had called the St. Regis. Room four-eleven's telephone was working, but it was continuously busy. And a woman he had seen clearly did not exist But she did exist! And she was a part of it; he knew it

  He got out of the chair, walked to the strangely placed bar, and poured himself a drink. He looked at his watch; it was one-fifty. He had ten minutes to wait before the overseas operator would call him back; the bank could be reached at two A.M., New York time. He carried his glass back to the chair in front of the window. On the way, he passed his FM radio. It was not where it usually was of course; that was why he noticed it. Absently, he turned it on. He liked music; it soothed him.

  But it was words, not music, that he heard. The rat-tat-tatting beneath an announcer's voice indicated one of those "all-news" stations. The dial had been changed. He should have known. Nothing is as it was for you....

  Something being said on the radio caught his attention. He turned quickly in the chair, part of his drink spilling onto bis trousers.

  ". . . police have cordoned off the hotel's entrances. Our reporter, Richard Dunlop, is on the scene, calling in from our mobile unit. Come in, Richard. What have you learned?"

  There was a burst of static followed by the voice of an excited newscaster.

  "The man's name was Peter Baldwin, John. He was an Englishman. Arrived yesterday, or at least that's when he registered at the St. Regis; the police are contacting the airlines for further information. As far as can be determined, he was over here on vacation. There was no listing of a company on the hotel registry card."

  "When did they discover the body?"

  "About a half hour ago. A maintenance man went up to the room to check the telephone and found Mr. Baldwin sprawled out on the bed. The rumors here are wild and you don't know what to believe, but the thing that's stressed is the method of killing. Apparently, it was vicious, brutal. Baldwin was garroted, they said. A wire pulled through his throat. An hysterical maid from the fourth floor was heard screaming to the police that the room was drenched with — "

  "Was robbery the motive?" interrupted the anchorman, in the interests of taste.

  "We haven't been able to establish that. The police aren't talking. I gather they're waiting for someone from the British consulate to arrive."

  "Thank you, Richard Dunlop. We'll stay in touch. . . . That was Richard Dunlop at the St. Regis Hotel, on Fifty-fifth Street in Manhattan. To repeat, a brutal murder took place at one of New York's most fashionable hotels this morning. An Englishman named Peter Baldwin ..."

  Holcroft shot out of the chair, lurched at the radio, and turned it off. He stood above it, breathing rapidly. He did not want to admit to himself that he had heard what he had just heard. It was not anything he had really considered; it simply was not possible.

  But it was possible. It was real; it had happened. It was death. The maniacs from thirty years ago were not caricatures, not figures from some melodrama. They were vicious killers. And they were deadly serious.

  Peter Baldwin, Esq., had told him to cancel Geneva. Baldwin had interfered with the dream, with the covenant. And now he was dead, brutally killed with a wire through his throat.

  With difficulty, Noel walked back to the chair and sat down. He raised his glass to his lips and drank sever
al

  long swallows of whiskey; the scotch did nothing for him. The pounding in his chest only accelerated.

  A flare of a match! Across the courtyard, in the window! There she was! Silhouetted beyond the sheer curtains in a wash of dim light stood the blond-haired woman. She was staring across the way, staring at him! He got out of the chair, drawn hypnotically to the window, his face inches from the panes of glass. The woman nodded her head; she was slowly nodding her head! She was telling him something. She was telling him that what he perceived was the truth!

  . . . The blond woman you're talking about was Mrs. Palatyne. She died a month ago.

  A dead woman stood silhouetted in a window across the darkness and was sending him a terrible message. Oh, Christ, he was going insane!

  The telephone rang; the bell terrified him. He held his breath and lunged at the phone; he could not let it ring again. It did awful things to the silence.

  "Mr. Holcroft, this is the overseas operator. I have your call to Zurich...."

  Noel listened in disbelief at the somber, accented voice from Switzerland. The man on the line was the manager of the Zurich branch of La Grande Banque de Geneve. A directeur, he said twice, emphasizing his position.

  "We mourn profoundly, Mr. Holcroft. We knew Herr Manfredi was not well, but we had no idea his illness had progressed so."

  "What are you talking about? What happened?"

  "A terminal disease affects individuals differently. Our colleague was a vital man, an energetic man, and when such men cannot function in their normal fashions, it often leads to despondency and great depression."

  "What happened?"

  "It was suicide, Mr. Holcroft Herr Manfredi could not tolerate his incapacities."

  "Suicide?"

  "There's no point in speaking other than the truth. Ernst threw himself out of his hotel window. It was mercifully quick. At ten o'clock, La Grande Banque will suspend all business for one minute of mourning and reflection."

  "Oh, my God...."

  "However," concluded the voice in Zurich, "all of Herr Manfredi's accounts to which he gave his personal attention will be assumed by equally capable hands. We fully expect — "