by TR Kenneth
He was in shock at his good fortune. The pages and pages of handwriting were in the same hand as that on the slip of silk. Whatever was in the coded margins was probably the reason Harry had been killed. Holding it like the Maltese Falcon, he quickly unbuttoned his shirt and slid the book between his chest and his arm. With the bulk of his jacket over it, it was undetectable.
He’d use the key written on the silk to figure out what the words meant back at the Adlon. Now, he had to exit the Dresdenhof without alerting anyone that he’d been there.
He looked around the apartment one last time. The place had been made into a shrine—with every remembrance frozen in time. It had been meticulously maintained for decades in honor of the woman who once lived there, yet there was nothing personal in the apartment, nothing ugly or messy. Even the shards of mirror seemed too exact. In suspended animation. It had all been cleansed except for the ugly, messy plea written on silk and slid into the back of a portrait.
He wondered if he would ever know what happened to Isolda Varrick. He looked once more at the portrait and her haunting expression. Had she been caught as a spy and executed? Or had she lived out the rest of her life in East Germany, dully waiting in bread lines?
The apartment left him uneasy. Something about it nagged at him, but from stress and jet lag, he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. Something was missing.
He unlocked the apartment door and couldn’t help but take another look back. There was no telling when he’d be able to enter the apartment again. Once they realized he’d infiltrated their precious perimeter, he had no doubt the nice man downstairs would be on the phone to his evil overlord, plotting his demise as they spoke. But until they managed to stop him, the game was on. For Harry, for everything in Stag’s life that had been so ruthlessly taken away, he was now prepared to play to the end. He would get everything he could on them. Hell, if he made it out alive, he’d write the exposé to end all exposés.
That would fuck them and the cesspool they’d crawled out of.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE CONCIERGE WAS busy at the desk when Stag arrived back in the lobby of the Dresdenhof. He exited in nonchalant silence and stepped into the cold. The day was dark with typical Berlin spring weather that couldn’t decide whether it wanted to snow or rain. He was expecting to see security goons appear behind him at any minute, but no one followed him.
Back at the elevator to the Adlon, he searched his pockets for his room key card. Deep exhaustion was taking over. He ordered food and checked the news. Buried in the Metro section of the Wuttke online paper was a small mention of Harry’s death. Heart failure was the cause. Wuttke Man Found Dead and Abandoned. The apartment resident was wanted for questioning. Harry’s obit ran in the same paper.
The food came, and he ate while doing more research on Tarnhelm. It was ostensibly a small Swedish janitorial service. But what seemed mundane on the surface was far from it. From their website, he discovered their specialties were high-security clean-up operations and controlled document destruction. The Tarnhelm corporate motto was “We are the Dustbin of the World.”
The words raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Heydrich, with his usual ironic humor, referred to the Gestapo as a cross between a general maid and the dustbin of the Reich. Trash removal. Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, no exceptions.
He also discovered what a tarnhelm was. It came from Wagnerian mythology; it was a magical helmet that provided a cloak of invisibility.
Einhar Kronbauer stared grimly at the old Polish maid, for a moment unsure of what she was trying to say in her crappy German. He only knew it was concerning apartment 12A. Something was amiss. And if there was one thing he did not enjoy, it was something going amiss in 12A.
The woman chattered away and urged him to go with her. He had to see what she saw.
He went up with her in the elevator. Katrine, with the fat arms and limp hair, nervously rang her hands. When the elevator door opened, she tugged on his sleeve and urged him quickly to the door.
Kronbauer took out his own key and threw open the door. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but the maid led him to the desk. There in the carpet were the impressions left of the saber-legs of the chair, impressions clearly marked by decades of the chair’s weight being left there, untouched. Only now, the chair was centimeters off target. Obviously moved. And the maid, who was paid an ungodly premium to keep the apartment in EXACT order, was emphatic in her denials.
Einhar had his ideas who had moved the chair. He’d have to make another phone call, something he looked forward to with the same enthusiasm as a colonoscopy.
He stared at the upset maid, his mind wandering to the dread of having to punch in that awful phone number. He knew only one thing: Someone was going to have a funeral. He just hoped like hell it wasn’t going to be his.
Luc Portier still had his hand on the phone that now lay silent on his desk. He’d had the second phone call from Kronbauer. He swiveled in his leather chair and stared out at the spectacular view of the Alps on the horizon.
He knew who’d been in the apartment. The next steps would be crucial to managing this problem before it spun out of control. Stag Maguire had proven to be a bit more wily than they’d given him credit for. He’d disappeared from his Wuttke apartment, and now had somehow managed to enter the Dresdenhof and get inside that apartment with his own key.
Tarnhelm’s men would be in the apartment soon, combing every inch of it for a clue as to what Maguire was looking for. But Portier already knew what would be. The copy of Mein Kampf. For decades now, Tarnhelm had studied the coding. Their best human and computerized cryptology had produced zero results. The code was based on an absolutely random key and it couldn’t be cracked without it.
Goddammit, he was sick of being a slave to that apartment. The cryptographers insisted nothing could be changed because there could be coding in the placement of the shellac records stored in the Telefunken or in the books on the shelves or the level of liquor in the bottles at the bar. For now, everything had to remain exactly as they’d been handed it. Exactly.
Now it appeared that information about 12A had somehow turned up in Wuttke, Wisconsin, in the hands of Stag Maguire. A dipshit journalist who didn’t have a clue what he was doing. How many nations would be at once terrified and thrilled at the possibility, should what Portier feared was inside the book be discovered?
He swiveled back to his desk, stood, and walked to the glass wall that separated his office from his private elevator. He took the lift down and stepped out into the sub-basement where Tarnhelm had its boardroom.
The conference table was empty. Just six seats for the entire board. A board meeting was overdue. There’d been talk that one member was losing his enthusiasm for security service. The man was growing too rich and lazy to bother with secrets any longer. He just wanted to fuck whoever happened to enter his plane with a pussy, and not much else.
Perhaps, with the shock of what Maguire might be able to expose, what was needed was a lesson. A real lesson. One they could all reeducate themselves with. Loyalty and enthusiasm could both be bolstered with a dramatic dose of terror. After all, there were no men on earth more obsessed with self-preservation than a bunch of white male executives sitting around a conference table.
A lesson it was, Portier decided. He would bring them in and pick their brains for a solution to Maguire. Plans would have to be formed and implemented. Security had been breached and that was unacceptable for Tarnhelm, much less Luc Portier. They should be made fully aware of it. Then they would all see how he, Portier, planned on going forward. They would get a nice coppery taste of the stakes at play, once they had blood in their mouths.
He walked past the conference table to a jib door set unobtrusively into the exotic blond wood paneling. He pressed both hands on it and it popped open to show another door that was two-feet-thick steel. It led to the small room beyond that was nothing more than cold stainless walls, a concrete floor. It was hewn into the sub-basement in
1942. The kind of brutalist architecture even Albert Speer would have admired. An old defunct bomb shelter, with no real use any longer except as a panic room. But he wondered why anyone back in ’42 would think to devise such a shelter. For a country not at war. Built for a bomb that didn’t exist.
He pressed the two-foot-thick steel door shut.
Yes, it was time for a board meeting. Time to test loyalties. Stag Maguire had managed to place everything at stake. Tarnhelm would not survive a meddling journalist who knew more than they did. Yet they couldn’t just go after him with an Uzi. Maguire knew things that they needed to know. They would have to finesse it out of him. Or torture it out of him. Then Maguire could be neutralized.
The board would have to convene right away. They would have to find a solution. If not, they wouldn’t need Tarnhelm. It would all be over. Maybe even in a flash.
He thought of the SS motto. My Honor is called Loyalty. In the end, when tested, some would have it; some would not.
Now he just had to find out who it was.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
STAG WAS JUST finished with his room service hamburger when the room phone rang next to him.
For a long moment, he stared at the clanging device, paralyzed by an unnamed dread.
“Yes.”
“Einhar Kronbauer, Mr. Maguire. I am from the Dresdenhof.”
He sat up, his body tensing. Jesus, they were quick.
“I would like to meet you for a drink, if you would be so kind. Perhaps now downstairs?”
Stag paused. He damned himself, helpless at check-in when they required his passport. He’d hoped there’d be more time. Some rest at least.
Now they knew where he was. The Dresdenhof’s security cameras would have his face to compare to his US ID. The only reason he was still alive was because they didn’t know what he had. They still wanted to talk to him—which was good—but it was only a matter of when before they’d lose patience and forcibly bring him in.
He had to play for time. There was too much he didn’t know. He’d barely begun deciphering the lines of code. He’d stumbled into this deadly mess because of that portrait, but now it was clear he had to make sure he stumbled less.
“I’ll meet you in the lobby.” He hung up the phone. He was going to have trouble sleeping tonight anyway. Might as well have a couple whiskeys. It wouldn’t hurt his nerves either.
He looked down at the book. It was next to the silk he’d taken from the apartment, the silk that perfectly matched its edges with the piece from the back of the portrait. There was no way he was leaving the book behind in the room, and no way he was going to walk around Berlin with a copy of Mein Kampf in his hands. He grabbed the sport coat he’d bought at the Walmart back in the US. He ripped open the interior breast pocket wide enough to fit the book, and stuffed it inside.
Once downstairs, he would press Kronbauer for whatever details he could. One thing was certain; he had to make sure Kronbauer brought the news back to the Tarnhelm Corporation that Stag Maguire had just enough information to be a wild card. He’d have to bullshit his way through. Make them too terrified to kill him. Then he might make it. He had to. Because that was the only way to keep them from murdering him for another few days.
Kronbauer sat in a chair along the balustrade that curved over the lobby. Stag noticed that he’d changed from earlier. He was quite the sharp dresser, this German with the fancy neckties.
Stag took a seat at the coffee table. After he’d ordered his whiskey, he took in the view of the lobby below and the stained-glass dome that hung above.
“Thank you for meeting me, Mr. Maguire,” Kronbauer began with his thick German accent.
Maguire said nothing. His nerves were on edge from lack of sleep and the soul-eating fear of being consumed by a predator. He was exhausted, but terror would keep him focused and alert.
“As you might guess, many people have been quite surprised at your interest in apartment 12A,” Kronbauer said.
“I didn’t find it, if that’s what you and your employer are wondering. But I will.”
Stag was pleased by Kronbauer’s troubled and confused expression. He himself didn’t know what the “it” was, but that there was an “it” related to that apartment, he had no doubt.
Kronbauer put his hand to his tie in the obsequiousness of all concierges. “The owner of the apartment has long since died, Mr. Maguire. The trust that maintains it is self-funding. There seems no apparent purpose in your interest.”
Since he was stabbing in the dark, Stag figured he had no choice but to keep fucking with him. “Diamonds are my interest.”
“I can assure you, you are on a fool’s errand. There are no diamonds in the apartment. I know every nook and cranny.”
“Maybe there’s something you missed. These are special diamonds.”
“The Blood Eagle? It certainly was a famous diamond, but it is not there, Mr. Maguire. If it were, I would know about it. It disappeared after Heydrich bought it. Just like so much associated with Heydrich, when he was assassinated.”
Stag weighed this new information in his head. “I have information you don’t. And my visit to 12A only confirmed everything I already knew.” Good God, he was doing a stellar job of bullshitting. He didn’t know he had it in him.
What the fuck was The Blood Eagle?
“May—may I be blunt with you, Mr. Maguire?” Stag was struck by the waver in Kronbauer’s voice. “You may be inquiring into things that people would like to keep undercover. I have no personal knowledge about this, but I fear it may not go well for you should you pursue this.”
There seemed a strange little humanity in Kronbauer that Stag hadn’t expected.
“Germany lost the war,” Stag said. “The Holocaust is no longer a secret. What on earth is there to hide in that apartment?”
Kronbauer drilled him with his stare. “What there is to hide, if I might venture a guess, is the horrific truth, sir.”
“The truth? And what would that be?”
Kronbauer paused. He didn’t seem to want to speak the words. “That most Germans would do it all again, if the circumstances were the same. In fact, I think you now know a good number of Americans that will act in fear and prejudice, and do cruel and inhuman things they may, in hindsight, deeply regret. It is the truth that we all run from. It is the human condition. We hate and fear and exploit the Other. We do not listen to the better angels of our nature. Not without constant vigilance.” He looked away and took a deep sip of his drink. Stag guessed it was scotch. “And I tell you as a postwar German, that vigilance is exhausting.”
Stag took a moment to ponder his words. Kronbauer was no idiot, and he had now proved he knew a lot more than he was letting on. “Who is it you work for?”
Kronbauer was back to business in a flash. “I invite you to discover that on your own, Mr. Maguire. Mr. Portier asks you join him in Zug for a brief holiday. He will be happy to send his jet.”
“Huh. Beats the hell out of the way I’ve been used to traveling. But you can tell your employer that I have all the information I need already.”
Kronbauer took a distracted sip from his glass.
“Mr. Portier can be very persuasive. He has assured me your trip would be profitable.”
“Tarnhelm needs to stay out of my business.”
“Of course, of course.” Kronbauer met his eye. “Perhaps they are only trying to be of service. “
“Bullshit.”
Kronbauer almost imperceptibly raised one eyebrow. “They have a stake in 12A. And they do not take prisoners.”
Stag stared at him, anger rising up like a fist in his throat. “What is their stake in 12A? I doubt a big international corporation like Tarnhelm needs to worry about a missing diamond, no matter how rare. So what is it? The janitorial service for one lousy apartment? Or could it be that their specialty in document destruction missed a document or two?”
Kronbauer tensed. “Mr. Portier is quite interested in all you have to say
, Mr. Maguire. What can I do to persuade you to take him up on his offer to fly you to him?”
“I’m going to get the Blood Eagle. Tell him that. Then maybe we’ll talk.” Stag slammed the rest of his whiskey.
He stood. “And just to let you know, if anyone’s going anywhere, it’s Portier. He’ll be coming to me, not the other way around. You tell him that.”
“I will, Mr. Maguire. But may I offer some advice?”
Stag listened.
“Decades have passed with my family in the service of apartment 12A. There is something … quite dark and unsavory in there. And much bigger than either of us. You cannot do this alone.” He paused. “If you contact me again through the Dresdenhof, Tarnhelm will know.”
Stag nodded and saw sadness and perhaps a little grudging admiration on Kronbauer’s face as he watched him go.
Pressing the elevator button, Stag wondered if he’d played it too hard. He was running the words through his head when the elevator doors opened and the blond woman he’d passed in the Pariserplatz stepped out. She gave him another smile. Her red coat was gone, which meant she’d probably left it in her room. Now she wore a sexy, frayed, vintage suit and clutched an iPad.
“Hello,” she said, no immediately identifiable accent in her voice.
He nodded.
She walked past him, the iPad clattering to the floor behind her.
He reached for it just as she did.
“Always clumsy, I guess,” she offered when she took it from him with what could only be described as a dazzlingly smart girl-next-door smile.
She turned to the lobby. He stepped into the waiting elevator. The exchange was pleasant. A nice antidote to the fear and paranoia that engulfed him. But he didn’t trust it. Not for a minute.
The elevator doors closed, and he wondered who she was and what her business was in Berlin. Could she have something to do with him? But there was no point in getting paranoid now. Because they really were out to get him. He need speculate no more.