by Allan Folsom
“Vera—if they’re listening, I don’t give a damn,” he said. “I want you to think carefully. From what Francois said, is there a connection between Albert Merriman and me and the situation with François?”
“I don’t know. . . .” Vera looked at the tiny, sculpted donkey still in her hand, then gently set it back on the table. “I remember my grandmother telling me what it was like in France during the war. When the Nazis came and stayed,” she said quietly. “Every moment was filled with fear. People were taken away with no explanation and they never came back. People were spying on each other, sometimes in the same families, and reporting what they saw to the authorities. And men with guns were everywhere. Paul—” She hesitated, and he could hear how afraid she really was. “I feel that same shadow now—”
Suddenly Osborn heard a noise behind him. He wheeled around. McVey was outside the phone booth. So was Noble. McVey jerked the door open.
“Hang up,” he said. “Now!”
84
* * *
OSBORN WAS hustled through the bar and out an exit onto the street. He’d tried to sign off with Vera, but McVey had reached in and cut off the phone with his hand.
“The girl, wasn’t it? Vera Monneray,” McVey said, pulling open the door to an unmarked Rover at the curb.
“Yes,” Osborn said. McVey had pushed into his private world and he didn’t like it.
“She with the Paris police?”
“No. The Secret Service.”
Doors slammed, and Noble’s driver pulled into traffic. Five minutes later they were rounding Piccadilly Circus and turning on Haymarket for Trafalgar Square.
“Unlisted number?” McVey said flatly, staring at the numbers Osborn had scrawled on his hand.
“What are you getting at?” Osborn said defensively, tucking his hands up under his armpits.
McVey stared at him. “I hope you didn’t kill her.”
Noble turned from his seat next to the driver. “Did you inquire about the telephone you were using or did you find it yourself?”
Osborn turned from McVey. “What difference does it snake?”
“Did you inquire about the telephone Or did you find it yourself?”
“The phones in the lobby were being used. I asked if there were any others.”
“And someone told you.”
“Obviously.”
“Anybody see you place the call? See what booth you went into?” McVey let Noble continue.
“No,” Osborn said quickly, then suddenly remembered.
“A hotel employee, an old black woman. She was vacuuming the hallway.”
“Not hard to trace a call from a public telephone,” Noble said. “Especially if you know which phone it is. Listed or unlisted, fifty pounds in the right hands will get you the number, the town, the street address and most likely what’s being served for dinner. All in the bat of an eyelash.”
Osborn sat for a long time in silence and watched as nighttime London flashed by. He didn’t like it, but Noble was right. He’d been foolish, stupid. But this wasn’t his world. Where every thought had to have a forethought, and everyone was under suspicion no matter who they were.
Finally he looked to McVey. “Who’s doing this? Who are they?”
McVey shook his head.
“Did you know the man you shot was a member of the Stasi,” Osborn said.
“She tell you that?”
“Yes.”
“She’s right.”
Osborn was incredulous. “You knew?”
McVey didn’t reply. Neither did Noble.
“Let me tell you, something you probably don’t know. The French prime minister has resigned his office. It’ll be announced in the morning. He was forced out by people in his own party because of his opposition to France’s part in the new European community. He thinks the Germans have too much power, they disagree.”
“Nothing new in that.” Noble shrugged and turned to say something to the driver.
“It’s new if he thinks they’d kill him if he didn’t. Or kill Vera as a point to him and his family.”
McVey and Noble exchanged glances.
“Is that what you think or what she said?” McVey asked.
Osborn glared at him. “She’s scared, all right? For a lot of reasons.”
“You didn’t help her any. Next time when I tell you to do something, you do it!” McVey turned to look out the window. After that, silence fell over the car, and there was only the hum of the tires against the road. Occasionally lights from oncoming traffic illuminated the men inside, but for the most part they sat in darkness.
Osborn leaned back. In his life he thought he’d never been so tired. Every limb ached. His lungs, as they lifted and fell with each breath, felt as if they were lead. Sleep. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that. Absently he ran his hand along the roughness of his jaw and supposed that somewhere along the way he’d forgotten to shave. Looking at McVey, he saw the same weariness in him. Deep circles hung under his eyes and gray-white stubble showed on his chin. His clothes, fresh as they were, looked as if he might have been sleeping in them for a week. And Noble, sitting in front, looked no better.
The Rover slowed and turned into a narrow side street and a block later swung into an underground garage. Suddenly it occurred to Osborn to ask where they were going.
“Berlin.” McVey beat him to it.
“Berlin?”
Two uniformed policemen approached the car as it stopped and opened the doors.
“Right this way if you would, gentlemen.” The uniforms led the way down a corridor and then out a door leading onto the tarmac. They were at the far corner of a commercial airport. In the distance a twin-engine plane sat waiting, its interior lights on, a portable stairway leading up to an open door in the fuselage.
“The reason you’re coming along,” McVey said as they walked toward it, “is to give a deposition before a German judge. I want you to tell him what Albert Merriman said to you just before he was shot.”
“You’re talking about Scholl.”
McVey nodded.
Osborn could feel his pulse jump. “He’s in Berlin.”
“Yes.”
Ahead of them, Noble went up the steps and into the plane.
“My deposition is to help get a warrant for his arrest.”
“I want to talk to him.” McVey started up the stairs.
Osborn was euphoric. It was why he’d gambled meeting with McVey in the first place. To take him the next step, to help him get to Scholl.
“I want to be there when you do.”
“That’s what I assumed.” McVey disappeared inside the plane.
85
* * *
“YOU SEE no sign of struggle and no evidence of foul play. The perimeter fences are monitored by video and have been checked by foot patrol with dogs. There is no evidence that security has been compromised.” Georg Springer, the slim, balding, head of security for Anlegeplatz, crossed Elton Lybarger’s huge bedroom glancing at his slept-in but now empty bed, listening to an armed security officer. It was 3:25, Thursday morning.
Springer had been wakened just after three and informed that Lybarger was missing from his room. Immediately he’d contacted central security, whose cameras monitored the main gate, the twenty miles of perimeter fencing and the only other ingresses, the guarded service entrance near the garage and a maintenance facility a half mile up a winding road to the rear. In the preceding four hours, no one had passed in or out.
Springer gave Lybarger’s room one last glance, then started for the door. “He could have become ill and wandered off in search of help, or he could be in some state of sleep where he doesn’t know where he is. How many personnel are on duty?” .
“Seventeen.”
“Get them all. Search the grounds carefully, including every room and bedroom. I don’t care if people are sleeping or not. I’ll waken Salettl.”
Elton Lybarger sat in a straight-backed chai
r watching Joanna. In five minutes she hadn’t moved. If it weren’t for the minor heave of her breasts under her nightgown, he would have taken the chance and called for help for fear she was ill.
It had been less than an hour since he’d found the video. Unable to sleep, he’d gone into his library for something to read. Lately, sleep had not been easy. And the little he’d had had been fitful, filled with strange dreams where he wandered alone among an array of people and places he thought were familiar but had no real fix on. And the times through which he passed were as distinctly different as the people, varying from prewar Europe to incidents as recent as that morning.
In his library he’d thumbed through several magazines and newspapers. Still sleepless, he’d wandered out onto the grounds. A light was on in the bungalow kept by his nephews Eric and Edward. Going to the door, he’d knocked. When no one answered he let himself in.
The luxurious main room, dwarfed by a massive stone fireplace and filled with expensive furniture, state of the art audio and video equipment, and shelf upon shelf of athletic trophies, was empty. The doors to the rear bedrooms were closed.
Assuming his nephews were asleep, Lybarger was turning to go when he saw a large envelope lying on a shelf near the door, probably left there for a messenger. On it was written “Uncle Lybarger.” Thinking it was for him, he opened it and found a video cassette inside. Curious, he’d taken it and gone back to his study where he put it into his video deck, turned on his TV and sat back to watch whatever it was the boys had been about to send him.
What he saw was a tape of himself kicking a soccer ball with Eric and Edward, a political talk he had given that had been carefully coached by his speech therapist, a drama professor at the University of Zurich. And then— shockingly—a sequence showing himself and Joanna in bed, with all kinds of numbers running on the screen, and Von Holden standing by, naked as the moment he was born.
Joanna was his friend and companion. She was like his sister, even his daughter. What he’d seen had horrified him. How could it be? How had this happened? He had no memory of it whatsoever. Something, he knew, was terribly wrong.
The question was: Did Joanna know about it? Was this some kind of sick game she was playing with Von Holden? Filled with shock and anger, he’d gone immediately to her room. Waking her from a deep sleep, he’d loudly and indignantly demanded she look at the tape immediately.
Confused and more than a little upset by his manner and his presence in her bedroom, she’d done as he asked. And now, as the tape unspooled, she was as unnerved as he. Her terrifying dream of a few nights earlier had been no nightmare at all, but instead a vivid remembrance of what had actually taken place.
When it was done, Joanna shut off the machine and turned to face Lybarger. He was pale and trembling, as drained as she.
“You didn’t know, did you? You had no idea that had happened?” she said.
“Nor you—”
“No, Mr. Lybarger. I most certainly did not.”
Suddenly there was a sharp rap at her door. It opened immediately and Frieda Vossler, a square-jawed, twenty-five-year-old member of Anlegeplatz’s security force entered.
Salettl and security chief Springer came into Joanna’s room several minutes later to find an indignant Lybarger hammering the video into the palm of his hand and screaming at guard Vossler, demanding to know the meaning of such an outrage.
Calmly Salettl had taken away the video and asked Lybarger to relax, warning him that what he was doing could bring on a second stroke. Leaving Joanna in the company of the security force, Salettl had seen Lybarger back to his room, taken his blood pressure and put him to bed, giving him a strong sedative laced with a mild psychedelic drug. Lybarger would sleep for some time and the sleep would be filled with surreal and fanciful dreams. Dreams, Salettl trusted, Lybarger would confuse with the incident of the video and his visit to Joanna’s room,
Joanna, on the other hand, had been less cooperative, and when Salettl returned to her room, he considered firing her on the spot and sending her back to America on the first flight available. But he realized her absence might be even more disruptive. Lybarger was used to her, trusted her for his physical well-being. She had brought him this far, even to the point of getting him to walk confidently without aid of a cane, and there was no way to tell what he would do if she were no longer there. No, Salettl had decided, firing her was out of the question. It was vitally important she accompany Lybarger to Berlin and stay with him until he left to give his speech. Politely he had prevailed upon her, for Lybarger’s sake, to. return to bed. That an explanation of what she had seen would be given her in the morning.
Frightened, angry and emotionally drained, Joanna had had the presence of mind not to press it.
“Just tell me,” she’d said. “Who knew about it besides Pascal? Who took the damn pictures?”
“I don’t know, Joanna. I certainly haven’t viewed it so I’m not certain what it even is. That’s why I ask you to wait until morning when I can give you a conclusive answer.”
“All right,” she’d said, then waited for them to leave before closing the door behind them and locking it.
Outside, Salettl had immediately posted security agent Frieda Vossler at her door with instructions that no one was to enter or exit without his permission.
Five minutes later he sat down at his office desk. It was already Thursday morning. In less than thirty-six hours, Lybarger would be in Berlin about to be presented at Charlottenburg Palace. After everything, and so close to the hour, that something could go wrong in Anlegeplatz was a circumstance none of them had even considered. Picking up the phone, he dialed Uta Baur in Berlin. Expecting to wake her, he was transferred to her office.
“Guten Morgen,” her voice was crisp and alert. At 4:00 A.M., she was already at work for the day.
“I think you should know . . . there has been some confusion here at Anlegeplatz.”
86
* * *
BY OSBORN’S watch it was nearly 2:30 in the morning, Thursday, October 13.
Next to him, in the dark, he could see Clarkson scanning the red and green lighted instrument panel of the Beechcraft Baron as he held it at a steady 200 knots. Behind them, McVey and Noble dozed fitfully, looking more like weary grandfathers than veteran homicide detectives. Below, the North Sea shimmered in the light of a waning half-moon, its strong tide running full against the Netherlands coast.
A short while later they banked to the right and entered Dutch air space. Then they were crossing over the dark mirror that was the Ijsselmeer, and soon afterward flying east over lush farmland toward the German border.
Osborn tried to picture Vera holed up in a house in the French countryside. It would be a farmhouse with a long drive up to it so that the armed men guarding her could see anyone coming well before they got there. Or maybe not. Maybe it was a modern two-story home on the rail line of a small town that trains passed by a dozen times a day. A nondescript house like thousands of others throughout France, ordinary and plain looking, with a five-year-old car parked out front. The last place a Stasi agent would ever guess housed his target.
Osborn must have dozed off himself because the next thing he saw was the faint glow of dawn on the horizon and Clarkson was dropping the Beechcraft through a light deck of clouds. Directly beneath, he said, was the river Elbe, dark and smooth, like a welcoming beacon that stretched as far in front of them as either of them could see.
Descending farther, they followed its southern bank for another twenty miles until the lights of the rural city of Havelberg shone in the distance.
McVey and Noble were awake now, watching as Clarkson dipped the left wing and banked sharply. Coming around, he cut the throttle and made a low, nearly silent, pass over the shadowy landscape. As he did, a signal light on the ground blinked twice then went out.
“Take us in,” Noble said.
Clarkson nodded and brought the Baron’s nose up. Giving the twin 300-horsepower engines a b
urst of power, he executed a steep righthand roll, then eased off the throttle and dropped back down. There was a bump as the landing gear came down, then Clarkson leveled off and came in just above the treetops. As he did, a row of blue lights came on, defining a grass landing strip in front of them. A minute later the wheels touched, the nose came over and the front wheel settled down. Immediately the landing lights went out and there was a deafening roar as Clarkson gave the propellers full reverse thrust. Several hundred feet later, the Baron rolled to a stop.
“McVey!”
A thick German accent was followed by a heavy laugh as McVey stepped out onto the dewy wet grass of the Elbe meadow some sixty miles northwest of Berlin and was instantly swept up in a giant bear hug by a huge man in a black leather jacket and blue jeans.
Lieutenant Manfred Remmer of the Bundeskriminalamt, the German Federal Police, stood six foot four and weighed two hundred and thirty-five pounds. Emotional and outspoken, ten years younger and he could have played linebacker for any team in the NFL. He was still that solid, that coordinated. Married and the father of four daughters, he was thirty-seven and had known McVey since he’d been sent to the LAPD as a young detective twelve years earlier in an international police exchange program.
Assigned to a three-week stint in Robbery-Homicide, two days later Manny Remmer had become McVey’s partner-in-training. In those three weeks, trainee Manfred Remmer was present at six court dates, nine autopsies, seven arrests, and twenty-two questioning and interrogation sessions. He worked six days a week, fifteen hours a day, seven of those without pay, sleeping on a cot in McVey’s study instead of the hotel room provided, in case something happened that needed their immediate and undivided attention. In the sixteen-odd days he and McVey were together, they arrested five hard-core drug dealers wit outstanding murder warrants and tracked down, apprehended and obtained a full confession from a man responsible for killing eight young women. Today, that man, Richard Homer, sits on San Quentin’s death row, having exhausted a decade of appeals, waiting for execution.