The Day After Tomorrow

by Allan Folsom

  Now, as he watched the door close behind the policemen and saw McVey turn back to study the building’s exterior, he turned angrily to Cadoux, his sharp features illuminated by the bank of black-and-white security monitors.

  “You were a fool to call her room from a telephone here.” His voice had the warmth of a steel rod.

  “I am sorry, Herr Von Holden.” Cadoux was apologetic but refused to relinquish his soul to a man fifteen years his junior. The rest of the world, Von Holden included, could go to hell when it came to Avril Rocard.

  Von Holden looked up at him. “Forget it. By this time tomorrow, it will have made little difference.” A moment before he had been ready to tell him Avril Rocard was dead. To throw it in his face coldly, in simple conversation, and enjoy the pleasure of his anguish. There was something else he could tell him too. Avril Rocard had not only been beautiful and an excellent marksman, she’d also been an internal spy inside the Paris sector and as such, not only Von Holden’s confidante but his lover as well. It was why she had been invited to Berlin. As added security for Lybarger inside Charlottenburg once the celebration had begun; and later, for Von Holden’s own pleasure. All of that could be told to Cadoux to amplify his pain, but none of it would be, at least not now. Cadoux had been brought to Berlin for another reason entirely, one that would require his full and undivided attention, and because of that, Von Holden would say nothing.

  Osborn was trying not to think of Vera, where she was and what she might be doing, the idea that she, of anyone, might be involved with the group was impossible, but why else was she here playing someone called Avril Rocard? His entire being felt raw and unnerved, and he heard himself talking to Schneider and Littbarski, attempting to explain the elements of American football over the din of the tavern, crowded, it seemed, with every tourist in Berlin.

  At first, the prattle through Schneider’s hand radio had seemed to be simply a routine police broadcast in German. The volume was up and heads in nearby booths turned at the staccato intrusion. Immediately Schneider reached over to turn the volume down. As he did, Vera’s name came through, and Osborn’s heart jumped in his throat.

  “What the hell is it?” he said, grabbing Schneider’s wrist. At the move Littbarski stiffened

  “Sich schonen.” Take it easy, he said to Osborn.

  Osborn released his grip and Littbarski relaxed.

  “What about her?” Schneider could see the tenseness in Osborn’s neck muscles.

  “Two federal policewomen apprehended Ms. Monneray as she was coming out of the Church of Mary Queen of Martyrs,” Schneider said in his heavily accented English.

  Church? Why would Vera be in church? Osborn’s mind raced. He never remembered her mentioning church or religious beliefs or anything like it. “Where are they taking her?”

  Schneider shook his head. “Don’t know.”

  “That’s a lie. You do know.”

  Again Littbarski tensed.

  Schneider picked up the radio and started to get up. “My orders are that if anything happened, I am to take you back to the hotel.”

  Unmindful of Littbarski, Osborn put out a hand to stop him. “Schneider, I don’t know what’s going on. I want to believe this is a mistake but I can’t know anything until I see her. Talk to her. I don’t want McVey getting her alone first. Dammit, Schneider. I’m asking you, please—help me.”

  Schneider looked at him. “I can see it in your eyes. You are crazy about her. That’s the right saying in American— crazy about her?”

  “Yes, that’s the right saying. And I am crazy about her. . . . Take me to wherever they’re taking her—” If Osborn wasn’t begging he was close to it.

  “You ran out on me before.”

  “Not this time, Schneider. Not this time.”

  108

  * * *

  VON HOLDEN watched the city in a blur, alternatively slowing, accelerating, then stopping the BMW completely in heavy midday traffic, only to move on again a few moments later. He was driving on automatic pilot, his mind torn by outrage and absurdity. Three of the four men he had sworn to kill, one of them McVey himself, had walked into his offices and bullied his help as if he were some kind of street front merchant. Worse, he had been helpless, unable to do anything but let them in and then watch from behind closed doors for fear that failure to do so would bring a full-scale invasion by the federal police.

  The madness of it was that it had been set off by Cadoux’s emotional appetite for a woman who hadn’t the slightest interest in him beyond what information he could unknowingly pass on about the loyalty of the operatives inside Interpol. It was then, in his anger at Cadoux’s stupidity, the final pieces of his strategy came together.

  72 Hauptstrasse, 12:15 P.M.

  Joanna saw the BMW turn in from the street, stop briefly at the guardhouse, then pass through the gate and swing around the circular drive to stop in front of the residence. From where she stood in the upstairs bedroom window it was difficult to see directly below, but she was sure she caught a glimpse of Von Holden as he got out and started for the house.

  Going quickly to the mirror, she ran a brush through her hair and touched up the expensive, wet-look lipstick Uta Baur had given her. For reasons she couldn’t explain or begin to understand, and despite all that had happened to her, she felt more sexually aroused than she ever had in her life. As if some insatiable hunger or thirst had suddenly and uncontrollably swept over her so powerfully that it could only be satisfied by the act itself.

  Opening the door, she stepped into the hallway and saw Von Holden in the downstairs foyer conferring with Eric and Edward. A moment later he stepped off and disappeared from view. Her instinct was to fly down the stairs after him, but she couldn’t with Lybarger’s nephews still there.

  Trying to shake the feeling free, she crossed the hall and knocked gently on a closed door. Immediately it was opened by a white-haired, pale, pig-faced man in a tuxedo. His skin had so little pigmentation she thought he might be albino.

  “I—I’m Mr. Lybarger’s . . .” The man’s appearance and almost superior way he looked at her made her nervous.

  “I know who you are,” he said in a throaty voice.

  “I would like to see Mr. Lybarger,” she said, and was shown in without hesitation.

  Elton Lybarger was sitting in a chair by the window reading from a dog-eared sheaf of papers typed with very large print. It was the speech he would give tonight, and in the last few days he’d done almost nothing but go over it.

  “I wanted to make sure you were comfortable and that everything was all right, Mr. Lybarger,” she said. It was then she noticed another man, also in a tuxedo, standing back near a window that looked out onto a large backyard. Why Mr. Lybarger needed two bodyguards in his room, in house as elegant and genteel as this, and with a guard-house and a gate out front, she had no idea.

  “Thank you, Joanna. Everything is fine,” he said without looking up.

  “Then, I will see you a little later.” She smiled caringly.

  Lybarger nodded absently and continued reading. Smiling pleasantly at the pig-faced bodyguard, Joanna turned and left.

  * * *

  Von Holden was alone in a dark paneled study when she came in and closed the door quietly behind her. He was sitting in a chair with his back to her, talking in German on the telephone. The room was dark compared to the bright sunshine in the yard outside. The grass was a vibrant green that caught and displayed like a quilt the; brilliant yellow and red leaves that flitted down from a massive copper beech in the far corner of the yard. To the left of the tree she could see a large five-car garage and beyond it an iron gate that appeared to lead to a service drive in the rear of the estate.

  Suddenly Von Holden hung up and swiveled around in his chair. “You shouldn’t come in when I’m on the telephone, Joanna.”

  “I wanted to see you.”

  “Now you see me.”

  “Yes,” she said, smiling. She thought he looked more tired t
han she’d ever seen him. “Did you have lunch?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Breakfast?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re tired. You even need to shave. Come up to my room. Shower, rest a little.”

  “I can’t, Joanna.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, I have things to do.” Suddenly he stood. “Don’t mother me, I don’t like it.”

  “I don’t want to mother you—I want to—make love to you.” She smiled and wet her lips. “Come upstairs, now. Please, Pascal. We may never be able to be alone ever again.”

  “You sound like a schoolgirl.”

  “I’m not . . . and you know it. . . .” She moved closer, so that she was standing directly in front of him. Her hand slid down over his crotch. “Let’s do it right here. Right now.” Everything about her, the purr of her voice, the movement of her body as she drew herself closer to him, was totally sexual. “I’m wet,” she whispered.

  Abruptly Von Holden reached down, took her hand away. “No,” he said. “Now, leave. I will see you tonight.”

  “—Pascal. I—love you. . . .”

  Von Holden stared at her.

  “You should know that by now—”

  Suddenly the pupils in his eyes receded to tiny dots and the eyes themselves seemed to press back into his skull. Joanna’s breath caught and she pulled back. Never, ever, had she seen anyone filled with anger or as dangerous as von Holden was now.

  “Get out,” he hissed.

  With a cry, she turned, bumped into a chair, then pushed around it and ran from the room, the door left open behind her. He could hear her heels on the stone foyer and the sound as she ran up the stairs. He was about to cross to the door to close it when Salettl came in.

  “You are angry,” Salettl said.

  Von Holden turned his back and stared out the window. He had called Scholl from the car with the final plan. Scholl had listened and agreed. Then, as quickly, he’d taken Von Holden out of it. It was too dangerous, he’d said. Von Holden was too well known as Scholl’s director of European security, and Scholl could not afford to chance the possibility that something would go wrong, with Von Holden killed or captured and the connection made back to him. The police were too close. No, Von Holden would plan it, but Viktor Shevchenko would execute it. That evening Von Holden would be seen publicly escorting Mr. Lybarger to Charlottenburg. And, afterward, he would quietly leave “to do the other,” as Scholl had put it. Those had been the orders and he’d hung up.

  “You know, Herr Letter der Sicherheit,” Salettl said softly. “On this day, of all days, your personal safety is beyond value.”

  “Yes, I know.” Von Holden turned to face him. Obviously Salettl knew what had taken place between Scholl and Von Holden because it was the “other” he was referring to. Immediately following the celebration at Charlottenburg, there was to be a second ceremony for very privileged few of the guests. Secret and unannounced, it was to take place in the mausoleum, the temple-like building on the palace grounds that housed the tombs of the Prussian kings. Von Holden was to deliver the highly sensitive material to be presented there, and the access codes necessary to retrieve it had been programmed for him, and him alone, and could not be changed.

  That he had been selected was in recognition of the high regard in which he was held and the power he had been given. Angry as he’d been, Scholl had been right, as had Salettl. For more than one reason, today of all days, his personal safety was beyond value. He had to realize he was no longer the Spetsnaz soldier that was still in his blood. He was no longer a Bernhard Oven or Viktor Shevchenko. He was Leiter der Sicherheit. Chief of security was no longer a job description but a mandate for the ‘future. As the man who would one day oversee the succession of power for the entire Organization, it made him, for all intents, “keeper of the flame.” And if he hadn’t fully understood it before, he should now, today, more than ever.

  109

  * * *

  THE INTERROGATION room in the basement of the building on Kaiser Friedrichstrasse was stark white. Floor, ceiling and walls. The same decor as the half-dozen six-by-eight-foot cells that adjoined it. Few people, even those who worked in the building which housed the collection bureau for the municipal public works department, knew the facility existed. But fully one-third of the six-thousand square-foot subbasement was occupied by a special investigations unit of the BKA. Built immediately following the massacre at the 1972 Olympic games in Munich, its primary use was to interrogate captured terrorists and terrorist informants. It had in the past served as a temporary holding area for members of the Baader-Meinhof group, the Red Army Faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and suspects from the bombing of Pan Am flight 103. Besides its stark whiteness, its other distinguishing characteristic was that the lights were never turned off. The effect, in concert, was that within thirty-six hours, prisoners became wholly disoriented, with things usually going downhill from there.

  Vera sat alone in the prime interrogation room on a white bench made of a PVC-like plastic molded to the floor. There was no table, no chairs. Only the bench. She had been photographed and fingerprinted. She wore dully gray pull-on slippers and a lighter gray, almost white, nylon jumpsuit with the words GEFANGER, Bundesre-publik Deutschland— PRISONER, Federal Republic of Germany—stenciled in Day-Glo orange on the back. She looked shocked and worn, but was still lucid when the door opened and Osborn entered. For a moment, a short, block-shaped policewoman stood in the doorway behind them. Then almost immediately she stepped back and closed the door.

  “My God—” Osborn whispered. “Are you all right?”

  Vera’s mouth was open; she was trying to say something but couldn’t. Tears burst forth instead, and then they were in each other’s arms and both were crying. Somewhere between the sobs and frightened caresses he heard her say, “François dead”—“WhyamIhere?”—“Everyone killed at farmhouse”—”What—haveIdone?”—“Came—to—Berlin—only—place—left—to—go—to—find—you.”

  “Vera. Shhh. It’s all right, honey.” He held her tight against him. Protectively, like a child. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. . . .” Brushing back her hair, he kissed her tears and wiped her cheeks with his hands.’

  “They even took my handkerchief,” he said, trying to smile. He had no belt, and they’d taken the laces from his shoes. Then they were holding each other again. Pressed together, arms around each other.

  “Don’t let go,” she said. “Don’t ever . . .”

  “Vera—tell me what happened. . . .” She took his hand, and held it tight and they sat down on the bench. Brushing away tears, she closed her eyes and thought back. All the way to yesterday.

  She could see the farmhouse outside Nancy and the bodies of the three slain Secret Service agents lying where they had fallen. Not far away, Avril Rocard stared unseeingly, blood slowly oozing from her throat.

  The phones had been dead when she’d gone back inside. Unable to find the keys to the Secret Service Ford, she’d taken Avril Rocard’s black police Peugeot and driven into the city, where she’d used a public telephone and tried to reach François in Paris. But the phones in both his office and his private number at home had been busy. No doubt, she thought, because news of his resignation had just been released. Still in shock from the killings, she’d gotten back into the Peugeot and driven to a park ori the edge of the city.

  There, sitting in the car, trying to work through a blur of fear and emotions, trying to think what to do next, she’d seen Avril’s purse on the floor on the passenger side. Opening it, she’d found Avril’s police I.D. and her passport case. Inside the case, tucked behind the passport, was a first-class Air France ticket from Paris to Berlin and an envelope with a reservation confirmation from the Hotel Kempinski. There was also an elaborate engraved invitation in German to a formal dinner to be held at the Charlottenburg Palace at 8 P.M. Friday October 14, in honor of a man named Elton Lybarger.
Among the sponsors was the name Erwin Scholl. The same man who hired Albert Merriman to kill Osborn’s father.

  Her only thought was that if Scholl was in Berlin, perhaps Paul Osborn might have found out and gone there too. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was all she had. She looked enough like Avril Rocard that unless someone knew her personally, she could pass for her even though she was several years younger. That had been Thursday, the Charlottenburg thing was Friday. From Nancy the fastest way to Berlin was by train from Strasbourg, and so that was where she went.

  Twice on the road from Nancy to Strasbourg she’d stopped to call François. The first time, the lines were tied up. The second time, at a highway rest stop, she got through to his office. By then it was nearly four in the afternoon and François had not been seen or heard from since he’d left his home at seven that morning. The media had not yet been informed that he was missing, but the Secret Service and police were on full alert and the president had ordered François’ wife and children to be taken to an unknown destination and kept there under armed guard.

  She remembered hanging up and feeling only numbness. Nothing existed. There was no François Christian. No Dr. Paul Osborn of Los Angeles. Nor was there a Vera Monneray who could go back to her apartment and her life in Paris and carry on as if nothing had ever happened. Four people were dead at a farmhouse behind her and the only men she had ever known and cared about, loved as completely and deeply as she had, were gone, vanished, like steam into the air. It was then a sense came over hen that what was happening was only a prelude to what was to come. And once again she felt the awful and shadowed echo of her grandmother’s past, and the horror and unending fear that went with it. The only answer seemed to lie in Berlin, as it had in her grandmother’s day. Only now it had become a great deal more personal. Whatever had happened to François was part of it, but Osborn was too because he was on the same path as well.