by Allan Folsom
Von Holden nodded. “Of course.” The isolation and execution of McVey and Osborn and Noble and Remmer was his responsibility; the rest Scholl would take care of through sector operatives in Los Angeles, Frankfurt and London.
“There, you see, Mr. Goetz. We have nothing at all to concern ourselves with. Nothing at all. So, unless you think I have overlooked something worth further discussion, I would prefer to return to the subject of our agency acquisition.”
Scholl’s telephone buzzed and he picked it up. Listening, he looked to Goetz and smiled. “By all means,” he said. “I am always available for Cardinal O’Connel.”
105
* * *
OSBORN STOOD under the shower trying to calm down. It was just after 9:00 A.M., Friday, October 14, eleven hours before the ceremony at Charlottenburg was scheduled to begin.
Karolin Henniger was a way in and they couldn’t use it. Remmer had checked again when they’d returned to the hotel. Karolin Henniger was a German citizen and single mother of an eleven-year-old boy. She had spent the late 1970s and most of the eighties in Austria, then returned to Berlin in the summer of 1989. She voted, paid her taxes and had no criminal record of any kind. Remmer had been right; there was nothing they could do.
Yet she knew. And Osborn knew she knew.
Suddenly the bathroom door banged open.
“Osborn!” McVey barked. “Get out here. Now!”
Thirty seconds later, naked and dripping, a towel around his waist, Osborn stood staring at the television McVey had on in the front room. It was a live news special from Paris showing extremely somber proceedings in the French parliament, one speaker after another getting up to make a brief statement before sitting back down. Over it was urgent narrative in German and then someone was being interviewed on screen in French and McVey heard the name François Christian.
“His resignation,” Osborn said.
“No,” McVey said. “They found his body. They’re saying he committed suicide.”
“Jesus Christ,” Osborn breathed. “Oh, Jesus Christ.”
Remmer was on one phone to Bad Godesberg, Noble on the other to London. Both wanted more details. McVey pushed a button on the remote and they got an English-language simulcast.
“The prime minister’s body was found hanging from a tree in the woods outside Paris by an early-morning jogger,” a female voice said over a long shot of wooded area cordoned off by French police.
“Christian reportedly had been despondent for days. Pressure for a United States of Europe had turned France against the French and he was a minority voice outspokenly against it. Because of his insistence, he had lost the confidence of the ministry. Sources inside the government say he had been forced to resign and that announcement was to have come as early as this morning. However, reports attributed to his wife say that at the last minute he had chosen to rescind his resignation and had called for a meeting today with party leaders.” The narrator paused, then went on, over a matching video. “French flags fly at half mast and the president of France has declared a national day of mourning.”
Osborn knew McVey was talking to him, but he didn’t hear any of it. He could only think of Vera. Wonder if she knew yet and, if she did, how she’d found out. Or if she didn’t know, where and how she would find out. And how she would be afterward. The notion flashed of how remarkable it was for him to be so concerned over the fate of her former lover. But that was how much he loved her. Her anguish was his anguish. Her pain, his. He wanted to be with her, hold her, share it with her. Be there for her. Whatever McVey was saying, he didn’t care.
“Shut up for a minute and listen to me, would you please!” Osborn suddenly lashed out. “Vera Monneray— François Christian took her to wherever she was when I called her from London. It’s somewhere in the French countryside. She may not have heard. I want to call her. And I want you to tell me if it’s safe to do that.”
“She’s not there.” Noble had just put down the phone and was looking at him.
“What do you mean?” Anxiety shot through Osborn. “How would you even—?” He stopped short. It was a foolish question. He was over his head with these people. So was Vera.
“It came in on the wire to Bad Godesberg,” McVey said quietly. “She was in a farmhouse outside Nancy. The three French Secret Service officers guarding her were found shot to death on the premises. A policewoman named Avril Rocard from the First Préfecture of Police in Paris was also there. From what they can tell, she cut her own throat. Why, or what she was doing there, nobody knows. Except that your Ms. Monneray took her car and later left it at the Strasbourg railroad station when she bought a ticket to Berlin. So, unless she got off somewhere along the way, I think we’d better assume she’s here now.”
Osborn’s face was beet red. He was incredulous. He no longer cared what they knew or how they knew it. That they could think what they were thinking was crazy. “She’s not there and you suppose she’s one of them? Just like that! Part of the group? What proof do you have? Go ahead. Tell me. I want to know.”
“Osborn, I know how you feel, I’m only passing on information.” McVey was calm, almost sympathetic.
“Yeah? Well you can go to hell!”
“McVey—” Remmer turned from the phone. “An Avril Rocard checked into the Hotel Kempinski Berlin a little after seven this morning.”
The room was empty when they came in. Remmer was first, the automatic in his hand, then came McVey, Noble and finally Osborn. Outside in the hallway, two BKA detectives guarded the door.
Moving quickly, Remmer went into the adjacent bedroom and then checked the bathroom. Both were empty. Coming back, he notified McVey, then went in and worked his way out from the bathroom. Pulling on surgical gloves, Noble went into the bedroom. McVey did the same and went over the living room. It was richly furnished with a view looking over the Kurfürstendamm below. Vacuum cleaner marks were still in the carpet, indicating the suite had been recently cleaned. A room-service breakfast tray was on a coffee table in front of the sofa. On it were a small glass of orange juice, several slices of untouched toast, a silver coffee thermos and a coffee cup, half filled with cold, black coffee. On the table beside the tray, a newspaper was face up, the headline of François Christian’s suicide stark and brutal in large type.
“She take it black?”
“What?” Osborn stood in a daze. It was inconceivable Vera could be here in Berlin. It was even more inconceivable that she could be involved with the group.
“Vera Monneray,” McVey said. “She take her coffee black?”
Osborn stammered, “I don’t know. Yes. Maybe. I’m not sure.”
There was the sound of a beeper in the other room. A moment later Remmer came in wearing surgical gloves like the others, and picked up the telephone. Dialing, he waited, then said something in German. Taking a small notebook from his pocket, he wrote something in pencil. “Danke,” he said and hung up.
“Cardinal O’Connel called back,” he said to McVey. “Scholl’s expecting your call. This number.” He tore off the sheet and handed it to him. “Maybe we won’t need the warrant after all.”
“Yes, and maybe we will.”
Remmer went back into the other room, and McVey began working the front room again. Paying close attention to the couch and the carpet directly beneath it, where whoever was drinking the coffee and looking at the newspaper would have been sitting.
“This Avril Rocard.” Osborn was working to be civil, logical, to make some sense of what was so overwhelming to him. “You say she’s with the Paris police. Have they positively identified her body? Maybe it was someone else. Maybe Avril Rocard is here, maybe it’s not Vera at all.”
“Gentlemen—” Noble stood in the door to the bedroom. “Would you come in, please.”
Osborn stood back and watched with the others as Noble slid open the door to the bedroom closet. Inside were two sets of day clothes, a black velvet evening dress, and a silver mink stole. Leading them to a low burea
u, Noble sat down, pulled open the top drawer and lifted out several pairs of lace underwear with matching bras, five unopened packets of Armani pantyhose, and a see-through silvery silk nightgown. The drawer beneath revealed two purses, one a black formal clutch to go with the evening dress. The other was a brown leather over-the-shoulder bag.
Taking out the black clutch, Noble opened it. Inside were two jewelry cases and a velvet drawstring bag. The first jewelry case held an opera-length diamond necklace, the second matching earrings. In the drawstring bag was a small, silver-plated, .25-caliber automatic. Putting them back the way he found them, Noble hefted the over-the-shoulder purse. Inside, held together by a rubber band, was a packet of unpaid bills addressed to Avril Rocard, 17 rue St.-Gilles, Paris, 75003. A Paris Préfecture of Police I.D. and a small, black nylon sport bag. Opening it, Noble laid out Avril Rocard’s passport, a clear Ziploc bag containing a packet of German Deutschmarks, an unused first-class Air France ticket from Paris to Berlin, and an envelope with a reservation confirmation from the Hotel Kempinski, dated for arrival on Friday, October 14, and checking out on Saturday, the fifteenth. Looking up at the faces surrounding him, Noble reached into the purse once more and came out with an elaborately engraved envelope, already Opened. From it, he took out an engraved invitation to the dinner for Elton Lybarger at Charlottenburg Palace.
Instinctively, McVey reached inside his jacket for the guest list.
“No need. I’ve already checked, an A. Rocard is there, a half-dozen names ahead of Doctor Salettl, one of the guests we had no information on,” Noble said, getting up. “One more thing . . .”
Crossing to a bedside table he picked up an object wrapped in a dark silk scarf. “It was tucked under the mattress.” Unwrapping the scarf, he pulled out a long, dog-eared leather wallet. As he did, he saw Osborn react. “You know what it is, Doctor Osborn—”
“Yes—” Osborn said. “I know what it is. . . .”
He’d seen it before. In Geneva. In London. And in Paris. It was Vera Monneray’s passport case.
106
* * *
OSBORN WAS not the only distraught man in Berlin.
Waiting for Von Holden in his office at the Sophie-Charlottenstrasse apartment, Cadoux was an anxious wreck. He’d spent two very troubled hours complaining to anyone who would listen—about German coffee, about a why he couldn’t get a French-language newspaper, about nothing at all; every bit of it disguising his growing concern over Avril Rocard. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since she should have completed her assignment at the farmhouse outside Nancy and reported back to him, I yet he had had no word.
Four times he’d called her apartment in Paris and four times there’d been no answer. After a sleepless night he’d telephoned Air France to see if she had checked in for her early flight from Paris to Berlin. When that proved negative, he started to fall apart. Trained terrorist, murderer and professional policeman; from his position within Interpol, the man assigned to coordinate security for Erwin Scholl anywhere he traveled in the world—and had for more than thirty years—inside, Cadoux was a prisoner of the heart. Avril Rocard was his life.
He finally risked a phone trace and made contact with an operative inside the French Secret Service who confirmed three Secret Service agents and a woman had been found dead at the Nancy farmhouse, but more detail was not available. Literally frantic, Cadoux tried the one last, and in retrospect, perhaps his most obvious, option. He telephoned the Hotel Kempinski.
To his enormous relief, Avril Rocard had checked in at 7:15 that morning, arriving by a cab from Bahnhof Zoo, Berlin’s main railway station. Hanging up, Cadoux reached for a cigarette. Blowing out the smoke, he smiled, he beamed, he pounded on the desk with his fist. Then, thirty seconds later, at 10:59 exactly, and with Von Holden still in his meeting with Scholl, Cadoux picked up the phone and placed a call to Avril Rocard’s room at the Hotel Kempinski. As luck would have it, the line was busy.
McVey was using it to call Scholl. The first part of their ‘conversation had been formal and polite. They discussed their mutual friendship with Cardinal O’Connel, the Berlin weather compared to Southern California, and the irony of being in the city at the same time. Then they got ground to the reason for McVey’s call.
“It’s something I’d rather discuss in person, Mr. Scholl. I wouldn’t want it to be misinterpreted.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“Let’s just say, it’s personal.”
“Detective, my calendar for the day is full. Isn’t this something that could wait until my return to Los Angeles?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“How much time do you think it will require?”
“Half hour, forty minutes.”
“I see—”
“I do know you’re busy, and I appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Scholl. I understand you’ll be at the Charlottenburg Palace for a reception this evening. Why don’t we meet there beforehand? How is about sev—”
“I will meet you promptly at five o’clock at number 72 Hauptstrasse, in the Friedenau district. It’s a private residence. I’m sure you will be able to find it. Good morning, Detective.”
There was a click on the other end as Scholl hung up and looked at Louis Goetz and then to Von Holden, as both hung up extensions.
“That was what you wanted?”
“That was what I wanted,” Von Holden said.
107
* * *
EVEN THOUGH the call Cadoux had placed to Avril Rocard at the Hotel Kempinski had never rung through, the front desk, on orders from the BKA, had kept the caller on hold long enough for the federal police to trace the call.
Because of it, Osborn was once again in the company of Inspector Johannes Schneider. Only this time there was a second BKA inspector along. Littbarski, a beefy, balding, single father of two. The three were crammed into a tiny wooden booth in a crowded Kneipe, a tavern a half block away, drinking coffee and waiting as McVey, Noble and Remmer climbed the stairs to the apartment on Sophie-Charlottenstrasse.
A middle-aged woman with dyed red hair and wearing a small telephone headset, looking as if she’d come to the door from a switchboard, opened the door and Remmer, flashing a BKA I.D., introduced himself in German. Within the last hour someone had placed a call to Hotel Kempinski Berlin and they wanted to know who it was.
“I couldn’t tell you,” she said in German.
“Let’s find someone who can.”
The woman was hesitant. Everyone had gone to lunch, she said. Remmer told her they’d wait. And if she had a problem with that, they’d get a search warrant and come back. Suddenly the woman raised her head, as if she were listening to something distant. Then she looked back and smiled.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that we are very busy. This is the welcoming headquarters for a private party tonight at Schloss Charlottenburg. Many prominent people are coming and we are frying to coordinate everything. Several are staying at the Hotel Kempinski. It was probably I who called earlier. To make certain our guests had arrived and that everything was all right.”
“Which guest were you checking on?”
“I—I told you. There are several.”
“Name them.”
“I have to check my book.”
“Check it.”
She nodded and asked them to wait. Remmer said it would be better if they came in. Again the woman raised her head and looked off. “All right,” she said finally, and led them down a narrow hallway to a small desk in an alcove. Sitting down next to a multiline phone, she moved a small vase holding a wilting yellow rose and opened a three-ring binder. Turning a page marked Kempinski, she brusquely shoved it under Remmer’s nose for him to read for himself. Six of the guest names were on the Kempinski list, including Avril Rocard.
Letting Remmer handle the woman, McVey and Noble stepped back and looked around. To their left was another hallway. Halfway down and at the end were doors. Both were closed. Across was
the apartment’s living room, where two women and a man sat at what looked like rented desks. One typed on a computer, the other two were working telephones. McVey stuck his hands in his pockets and tried to look bored.
“Somebody’s talking to her through that headset,” he said quietly, as if he were talking about the weather or the stock market. Noble glanced back at her in time to see her nod past Remmer toward the man in the living room working the telephones. Remmer followed her gaze, then walked over and showed him his I.D. They talked for several minutes and then Remmer came back to McVey and Noble.
“According to them, he was the one who called Avril Rocard’s room. Neither of them know where either Salettl or Lybarger are staying. The woman thinks they’ll go directly to Charlottenburg from the airport.”
“What time are they due to land?” Noble asked.
“She doesn’t know. Their job seems to be to take care of the guests and that’s all.”
“Who else is here, in the other rooms?”
“She says there are just the four of them.”
“Can we go back there?” McVey nodded toward the hallway.
“Not without cause.”
McVey looked down at his shoes. “What about a search warrant?”
Remmer smiled cautiously. “On what grounds?”
McVey looked up. “Let’s get out of here.”
Von Holden watched on closed-circuit television as the detectives descended the stairs and went out. He’d returned from his meeting with Scholl barely ten minutes earlier to find Cadoux seated in his office, still trying to get through to Avril Rocard at the Hotel Kempinski: Seeing him, Cadoux had slammed the phone down, outraged. At first her line had been busy! Now there was no answer at all! Angered, Von Holden had told him forget it, he was not in Berlin on vacation. It was then the police had arrived. Instantly Von Holden knew how and why, and that he’d had to act quickly, delaying them at the front door while he replaced one of the female secretaries in the front room With the male security guard.