by Allan Folsom
“Osborn! OSBORN!” he screamed.
The heat was unbearable. His facial skin, so badly burned in the first fire, was now being literally fried against his skull. What little air there was seemed to be coming from the interior of a furnace. Any breath at all seared the lungs raw.
“Osborn!” McVey cried out again. The thundering of the flames was like roaring surf. There was no way anyone could be heard. Then he caught the odor of burnt almonds. “Cyanide!” he said out loud.
He saw something move in front of him. “OSBORN! IT’S CYANIDE GAS! OSBORN! CAN YOU HEAR ME?” But it wasn’t Osborn. It was his wife, Judy. She was sitting on the front porch of their cabin above Big Bear Lake. The peaks, purple behind her, were touched with snow at the crest. The grass was long and golden and the air around her was punctuated with tiny insects. It was clean and pure and she was smiling. “Judy?” he heard himself say. Suddenly someone else’s face dropped into his, as close as you could get. He didn’t recognize it. The eyes were red and the hair was singed and the face was like blackened Creole fish.
“Give me your hand!” the face yelled.
McVey was still watching Judy.
“Goddammit!” the face screamed. “Give me your hand!”
Then McVey drew himself away and reached Out. He felt a hand, then heard breaking glass. Suddenly he was up and half on his feet. The face had an arm under him and they were climbing out through shattered French doors. Then he saw thick fog and cold air filled his lungs!
“Breathe! Breathe deep! Come on! Breathe, you son of a bitch! Keep on breathing!” He couldn’t see him but he was sure Osborn was yelling at him. He knew it was Osborn. It had to be. It was his voice.
126
* * *
JOANNA LOOKED out from her hotel room. Berlin was obscured, enclosed in an ever-thickening shroud of fog. She wondered if her plane would be able to take off in the morning. Going into the bathroom, she brushed her teeth and then swallowed two sleeping pills.
Why Dr. Salettl had so abruptly and rudely changed her plans, she had no idea. Why Von Holden had said nothing of leaving with Mr. Scholl immediately after the ceremony troubled her deeply, and she wondered even if it were true.
Who was Salettl anyway? What power did he have that he could control the comings and goings of someone like Von Holden, or even Scholl for that matter? Why he had even bothered to give her a present was beyond her. She meant no more to him than a mosquito clinging to a screen, to be suddenly snapped free or crushed at will. He was cruel and manipulative, and she was certain the dreadfully dark sexual incident with Elton Lybarger could be traced directly to him. But it didn’t mater. Von Holden was the one, he had made everything else that happened seem merely a dream.
She went to bed thinking of him. She saw his face and felt his touch, and knew that for the rest of her life she would never love anyone else.
Von Holden’s entire being bordered on complete exhaustion. Never, through all his training with the Spetsnaz, the KGB and the Stasi, had he experienced such mental and physical weariness. They could take his Spetsnaz evaluation—that he “performs constantly, under the highest stress, with calm and clear judgment”—and send it back for “evaluation.”
Immediately following his encounter with Salettl outside the mausoleum, he had gone to the apartments within the Golden Gallery complex to wait for Scholl as ordered.
But the moment he’d closed the door he’d felt the stab I of the Vorahnung—the premonition. It wasn’t a full-blown attack, but he could feel its clock counting off the seconds like a time bomb and after five minutes he’d left. Salettl was old, so was Scholl, so were Dortmund and Uta Baur. Power and wealth and time had made them despotic. Even Scholl, for all his seeming concern that McVey and Osborn could destroy everything, did not really believe it. The concept of true danger had long since vanished. The idea that they could somehow fail was absurd. Even the arrival of McVey and BKA inspectors with an arrest warrant did not faze them.
The ceremony at the mausoleum had not been canceled, only postponed. And would go on as planned as soon as the lawyers had intervened and the police had left the premises. The final arrogance of it was that the ceremony not only involved the presentation of the Organization’s most closely guarded secret, it centered around murder. Step two of “Übermorgen”—the ritualistic assassination of Elton Lybarger. The prelude to what “Übermorgen” was truly about.
Let them play the insolent fools if they could do no better, but Von Holden was different, he was Leiter der Sicherheit, the last guardian of the Organization’s security. He had taken the vow to protect it from enemies within and without, at whatever cost. Scholl had prevented him from leading the attack at the Hotel Borggreve, and Salettl had relayed Dortmund’s order to wait in the Royal Apartments in the Golden Gallery complex for his next command. Waiting there, alone, with the dark throb of the Vorahnung ticking inside him, hearing the roar of applause as Lybarger entered the Golden Gallery in the room next to him, he made the decision that at that moment the enemies from within were as dangerous as those from without. And that because of it, the next command would not be theirs, but his. Taking a back staircase, he’d gone out a side door, ordered a car from the security force and driven the white Audi directly back to the house at 45 Behrenstrasse, intending to return the box to the deep safety of der Garten. It wasn’t possible. The street was filled with fire equipment. And the house itself was fully engulfed in flame.
Sitting there, in the darkness halfway down the street, the unimaginable before him, he’d felt the honor begin to rise once more. It began as transparent waves undulating slowly like spots before his eyes, then came the red of the Aurora and with it the unearthly green.
Fighting it off, he picked up the radio. Damn them and. what they were doing, but someone of them had to be informed. Scholl, Salettl, Dortmund or even Uta Baur. But even as the radio was in his hand, the call had come through from the palace. “Lugo!” His radio had crackled “ with the desperate voice of Egon Frisch, Charlottenburg’s acting security chief—”Lugo!”
For a moment he’d hesitated, then finally replied. “Lugo.”
“All hell has broken loose! The Golden Gallery is locked and on fire! All entrances and exits are sealed!”
“Sealed? How?”
“By security doors, latched into place. There is no electricity, no way to move them!”
Leaving Behrenstrasse, Von Holden had driven like a madman through Berlin. How could this be? There had been no sign, no indication. The security doors had been installed in every room in the palace two years before in case of fire and to prevent vandalism, a full eighteen months before the date or even the location for celebration had been chosen. Automated computer security checks scanned the Behrenstrasse house twenty-four hours a day, and had done the same for the last week at Charlottenburg. Late that afternoon Von Holden had personally inspected the systems within the Golden Gallery, and in the Galerie der Romantik where the cocktail reception had been held. Nothing was out of place. Everything had checked.
Nearing the palace, he’d found the entire area sealed off. The crossing at Caprivi Bridge was as close as he could get, and he’d had to do that on foot. Even from there, a quarter of a mile away, he could see the flames rampaging into the sky. By morning the entire palace would be reduced to ashes. It was a national tragedy of profound proportion, and headlines, he knew, would liken it to the Reichstag fire of 1933. Whether they would find reason later to liken it to what happened in German immediately afterward, he had no idea. What he did know was that had he obeyed Salettl’s order and stayed, he and the priceless box he had retrieved from der Garten would have been in the center of the conflagration he now watched. Neither would have survived.
It was then, while he stood on Caprivi Bridge, watching Charlottenburg burn, Von Holden unilaterally put Sector 5, the “Entscheidendes Verfahren”—the Conclusive Procedure—into operation. Planned in 1942 as the last and final measure in the face of impossible od
ds, it had been refined and rehearsed by those in charge for half a century. Each member of the Organization’s highest circle had been taught the procedure, had practiced it two dozen time, could do it in his sleep. Purposely designed to be operational for one man acting alone and under extreme pressure, the route and modes of transportation were left open to ingenuity at the time of execution. Its charm was its simplicity and its mobility, and because of that it I worked. And had, time and again, even against top Organization operatives acting as enemy agents attempting to stop it.
The decision made, Von Holden returned to the Audi and drove off through a horde of rubberneckers rushing to get a view of the fire. That both fires, Charlottenburg and Behrenstrasse, were obviously the work of saboteurs, meant it was essential he get out of Germany as quickly as possible. Whoever was responsible—the BKA, German Intelligence, the CIA, the Mossad, French or British Military Intelligence—would be watching every exit point for anyone in the Organization who might have escaped the terror. The heavy fog that had concerned him earlier prohibited escape by air, even by private jet. Using the Audi was an alternative, but the drive was long and there could be roadblocks or mechanical failure. A bus, if stopped, left ho room for escape. That left the train. A man could lose himself in a crowded station and then take a private sleeping compartment. The borders were not checked as closely as they once had been and besides, if there was a problem, a pulled emergency cord could stop a train anywhere along the line and a passenger could slip away in the confusion. Still, a man alone buying overnight passage in a sleeping compartment could be remembered. And if he was remembered, he could be traced and then captured. Yet there was no other way, and Von Holden knew it. What he needed was a complication.
127
* * *
BY NOW seventeen engine companies had converged on the horror of Charlottenburg and more were coming from outlying districts. Spectators by the thousands strained to see from distant parameters, held there by several hundred helmeted Berlin police. Despite the heavy fog, media, police and fire helicopters fought for airspace directly over the conflagration.
The fire brigade’s Second Engine Company Feuerwehrmanns had worked their way to the rear, cutting through temporary security fences and trampling formal gardens, trying to concentrate hoses on the furiously burning upper floors, when Osborn came screaming for help out of the dark.
He’d left McVey where he’d dragged him, flat on his back in the grass, as far away from the terrible heat as he could get. The policeman had been unconscious and laboring to breathe and Osborn had torn open his jacket and shirt, tearing away anything that might restrict the flow of air. But he’d been helpless to do anything about violent spasms in McVey’s neck muscles and upper arms. He needed an antidote for the cyanide, and he needed it fast. Across the Spree he could see spectators, and, gagging and nauseated, poisoned himself by the gas but to a lesser degree, he’d run to the river’s edge yelling and waving his arms. But it was only a moment before he’d realized a new enemy. Distance and darkness. No one could see or hear him. Turning back, he saw McVey writhing in the grass, and beyond him, the raging inferno. McVey was going to die and there was nothing he could do about it but watch. It was then the firemen had come.
“Cyanide gas!” he yelled, coughing and choking, into the face of the young, bull-like fireman who rushed with him through a rain of burning embers and swirling fog. He knew American fire companies carried cyanide antidote kits because burning plastics give off cyanide gas; he prayed the Germans were as high-tech.
“We need cyanide antidote! Amyl nitrite! Do you understand? Amyl nitrite! It’s an antidote for the gas!”
“Ich verstehe nicht Englisch”—I don’t understand English—the fireman said, agonizing with the American.
“A doctor! A doctor! Please!” Osborn pleaded, enunciating as carefully as he could. Praying the man would understand.
Then the fireman nodded. “Arzt! Ja!” A doctor, yes! “Ich brauche schnell einen Arzt! Cyanide gas!” He spoke quickly, and authoritatively into the radio microphone on the collar ‘ of his jacket, asking for medical help immediately.
“Amyl nitrite!” Osborn said, then, turning away, bent over and vomited in the grass.
Remmer rode with them in the ambulance as the drug began to take effect. The German paramedic who had administered it and two other paramedics were with them as well. An oxygen mask covered McVey’s nose and mouth. His breathing was returning to normal. Osborn lay beside him, an IV in his arm like McVey, staring up at Remmer, listening to the staccato crackle of his police radio that overrode the singsong of the ambulance siren. It was all in German, but somehow Osborn understood. Charlottenburg and nearly everyone in it had perished in the fire. Only he and McVey and a few of the help and security guards had escaped. The Golden Gallery was still sealed by the metal doors, now a molten, twisted mass. It would be hours, even days, before rescuers with gas masks could go inside.
Lying back, he tried to push away the vision of McVey in the grass. That, as a grown man, he had acquired the skills of a doctor meant nothing. He’d been helpless to do anything but watch—finally to run, screaming, for help. It was the same precious little he’d been able to do for his own father as he lay in the gutter of the Boston street so many years before.
He felt the shudder of an uncontrolled sob as he realized that the enigma of his father’s death was ended, entombed in the fiery rubble of Charlottenburg. The most he’d been able to gain from all that had happened was that his father, and any number of others, had been victims of a complex and macabre conspiracy involving a secret, elitist Nazi group’s experiment in low-temperature atomic surgery. One that, if McVey’s theory about Elton Lybarger was true, had apparently been successful. But for the why of it, he still had no answer. Perhaps what he had learned was already too much. He thought of Karolin Henniger and her son, running from him in the alley. How many more had died because of his own personal quest? Most had been totally innocent. In that, the guilt was his. The nightmare of his existence had been extended unfairly to others. Lives that should never have crossed, tragically had.
Whatever God that had deserted him when he was ten, deserted him still. Even to Vera, who, for a single few days, had been a light he’d never dreamed of. What had this God done about her but brand her a conspirator, tear her away and cast her in prison.
Suddenly he visualized her under the terrible glare of the ever-present lights. Where was she at this moment? What were they doing to. her? How was she managing against them? He wanted to reach out and touch her, comfort her, tell her that eventually everything would be all right. Then the thought came that even if he could tell her, she would pull back, recoiling from his touch, no longer trusting him. Had everything that had happened destroyed that too?
“Osborn . . .” Suddenly McVey’s voice rasped out through the oxygen mask. Looking over, Osborn could see Remmer’s face lit by the interior lights of the ambulance. He was watching McVey. He wanted him to live, to be well again.
“Osborn’s here, McVey. He’s all right,” Remmer said,
Pulling off his own oxygen mask, Osborn moved to take McVey’s hand and saw the detective staring up at him. “We’ll be to the hospital soon,” Osborn said, trying to reassure him.
McVey coughed, his chest heaved painfully and he closed his eyes.
Remmer looked to the German doctor.
“He’ll be okay,” Osborn said, still holding McVey’s hand. “Just let him rest.”
“The hell with that. Listen to me.” Abruptly McVey’s grip tightened on Osborn’s hand and his eyes opened. “Salettl—” McVey paused, breathed deeply, then went on. ‘—said—Lybarger’s physical therapist—the girl—would be on—”
“The morning plane to L.A.!” Osborn finished for him, his words coming in a rush. “Jesus Christ, he said it for a reason! She’s got to be alive. And here, in Berlin!”
“Yes—”
128
* * *
THE PRIVAT
E room on the sixth floor of Universitäts Klinik Berlin was dark. McVey had been checked into the room and then taken to the burn unit, Remmer had gone to have his broken wrist X-rayed and set, and Osborn had been left alone. Dirty and exhausted, hair and eyebrows singed so short he thought he could have passed for Yul Brynner or a marine grunt, he’d been examined, bathed and put to bed. They’d wanted to give him a sedative but he’d refused.
Berlin police scouring the city for Joanna Marsh, Osborn should have simply drifted off, but he didn’t. Maybe he was overtired, maybe a minor case of cyanide poisoning had a side effect that nobody knew about and worked like an adrenaline rush that kept you pumped up. Whatever it was, Osborn was wide awake. He could see his clothes along with McVey’s rumpled suit hanging in the closet. Past them, through the open door, he could see the central nurses’ station. A tall blonde was on duty, talking on the phone and at the same time making an entry into a computer workstation in front of her. Now a doctor came in making late-night rounds, and Osborn saw her look up and wink as the doctor stopped to scrutinize some paperwork. How long had it been since he’d made hospital rounds? Had he ever? It seemed he’d been in Europe for eons. A doctor in love had, in quick turn, become a pursuer, a victim, a fugitive and, finally, a pursuer again with policemen from three countries as allies. And in that he had shot to death three terrorist gunmen, one of whom had been a woman. His life and practice in California existed only in vague memory. There, but not. In a way it mirrored his life. There, but not. It had all happened because he had never been able to put to rest the death of his father. And after everything, it was still not done. That was what was keeping him awake. He’d tried to find the answer on the bodies of Scholl and Salettl. There was none. And it had seemed to be journey’s end until McVey had remembered what Salettl had said. He may or may not have been telling them to find Joanna Marsh. She might have some kind of answer, she might be completely innocent. But she was a piece still hanging, as Scholl had been after the death of Albert Merriman. So the journey was not yet done. But with McVey down and out for who knew how long, the question became—How to continue?