The Quest

by Christopher Nicole

  “Oh, yes.” Savos raised his glass. “Our health. I offered them my memoirs, but they were not interested.”

  “They are now. You mean you have actually written the memoirs?”

  “A few chapters. I am up to where I first met you.”

  “Ah . . . that may have to be censored,” Berkeley said. “However, let them have a look at it. Meanwhile, you once offered me your assistance, should I ever need it.”

  “Of course. You have but to say.”

  “I have to tell you that it may involve some violence. Are you still up to it?”

  “Of course. In any event, we will have Martina as a backup.”

  “Eh?”

  “Martina is the finest shot I have ever known. She has nerves of steel,” Savos said.

  Berkeley looked at the young woman, who gave him a reassuring smile; he didn’t know how much she understood of what was being said. But to involve Martina . . . then he recalled, that as Savos’ secretary over several years she must have been involved in a great deal of violence, most of it unsavoury,

  “So. Who are you going after?” Savos asked. “Some more of these IMRO people?”

  “I am going to Germany,” Berkeley said.

  Savos raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t know you had enemies in Germany.”

  “I don’t, right this minute. But I think I am going to make some. Anna has been sighted.”

  “Anna? But that is splendid news.” He frowned. “Or is it?”

  “She is apparently in a Munich brothel,” Berkeley said. “Lockwood and I are going to get her out. But they may not wish to let her go.”

  “Ah,” Savos said. “Yes, I see. So we take her by force. Then it is across the border into Switzerland, eh?”

  “That’s the idea,” Berkeley said.

  Savos considered. “You realise . . . well . . . it will have been five years in a brothel. Or various brothels.”

  “I understand that,” Berkeley said. “Getting her back, in a real sense, is going to be difficult. But you do not expect me to leave her there?”

  “Of course not. And we will back you to the hilt, as they say, eh? Besides . . .” he winked. “As it will not happen in England, I will not be breaching the terms of my residence here. Tell me what you wish us to do.”

  “I wish you to tell everyone that you are going on holiday, on a visit back to Serbia. Then you will take a cross-Channel ferry to France, and find your way into Germany. I assume you have passports?”

  “Serbian passports.”

  “Just as long as they’re still valid. And you both speak German?” He knew the language was virtually a lingua franca in the Balkans.

  “Of course.”

  “Right. In Germany, you will go to Munich, and put up at the Hotel Kaiser. You will wait for Lockwood and myself to join you. You will not know us. We will meet casually in the bar and strike up an acquaintance.”

  “I understand. But the Hotel Kaiser. It is not cheap.”

  Berkeley opened his briefcase, and Savos’ eyes widened as he saw the amount of money there. Berkeley peeled off fifty of the folded five pound notes.

  “This will keep you going until I can join you. I will take care of all expenses after that. When can you leave?”

  “Well . . . two days’ time.”

  “Good man. Have you weapons?”

  Savos smiled. “Of course.”

  “Well . . .” he finished his drink, stood up and shook hands. “I’ll see you in Munich.”

  Martina hurried forward for a hug and a kiss. “We fight for you, eh?” she asked.

  “We fight together,” Berkeley promised her.

  *

  “It really goes against the grain to hoodwink that poor old sod. And that lovely girl,” Berkeley confessed to Lockwood, when he returned to London.

  “They’re neither of them shrinking violets, when it comes to either violence or breaking the law,” Lockwood pointed out.

  “I keep telling myself that,” Berkeley said. “But you have to face it, I have spent my entire life manipulating people for my own advantage. When you think of poor old Pathenikos . . . heaven knows what happened to him. And you know, I even manipulated Anna Slovitza and Caterina, although they never knew it.”

  “Went with the job,” Lockwood suggested. “Goes with this job.”

  “I’m even manipulating you,” Berkeley said sadly. “Always have done.”

  “Correction,” Lockwood said. “Whatever we have ever done has always been by mutual agreement.”

  Berkeley shook his hand, even as he reflected that maybe he was getting too old for this profession. One last time.

  *

  They made their final preparations, arranging their own passports, train tickets, both into and out of Germany, hotel reservations, and caught the ferry three days later. By now, Berkeley reflected, the Savoses should be well on their way. The following day they were in Munich, and checking in at the Hotel Kaiser. That evening they met the Savoses in the hotel bar, made their acquaintance, and had a drink together.

  “There is some investigating I have to do,” Berkeley said. “Just enjoy yourself tomorrow as tourists.”

  They ate at separate tables.

  It was a wet autumnal night, and Berkeley stood at his window and looked out at the street. At least the rain was keeping people indoors, and the city seemed quiet enough.

  It was time to think very clearly. He had assembled his forces. Now he had to determine exactly where and when, not to mention how. Obviously a shot from a distance was the safest, in cold terms. But as Hitler did not spend a lot of time in the open air, that was going to be difficult, quite apart from the fact that the distance could not be sufficient for concealment – he did not have his Mauser hunting rifle.

  The alternative, and the most certain of success, would be to get right up to Hitler and use the Browning. But again, as Hitler was usually surrounded by his entourage, getting away again was going to be very difficult, even with Savos and Martina to back him up.

  It would have to be a very extensive reconnaissance. But the key would lie with Frederika, if she was still a prominent member of the Nazi Party. He could do nothing until he had spoken with her, discovered Hitler’s routine, if he had one, and if it might be possible to get him out of town.

  He took off his dressing gown, went to the bed, and heard a gentle tap on the door. Shades of Frederika, he thought. But he had been expecting this, even if he had not yet made up his mind how to deal with it.

  He put on his dressing gown again, opened the door. Martina was also wearing a dressing gown, and like him, he estimated, there was nothing underneath.

  He allowed her to enter the room, and closed the door. “Does Savos know you’re about?”

  “Alexandros is sleeping. He takes a powder, to make him sleep. He dreams, you see, and has nightmares.”

  “That’s not surprising.”

  “I make up the powder,” she said. “So tonight I doubled the dose. He will not awaken before tomorrow.”

  “I see you have it all worked out,” Berkeley said, sitting on the bed. “So what’s next on your agenda?”

  “Many things. Do you know that Alexandros is sixty-eight years old?”

  “He looks very fit to me.”

  “Oh, he is. He takes much exercise. And he can still shoot straight. He will not let you down. But still, sixty-eight . . . I would not like him to die of a heart attack.”

  “I think that’s the least of his worries. I’m hoping no one is going to get killed, at least of us four. But I can’t promise anything. You knew, and Savos knew, it was going to be a high-risk operation when you joined up.”

  “Shooting up a brothel?” Her tone was contemptuous. “Have you not done this before? We were still in Serbia when there was that incident in Athens. Was that not you?”

  “Yes,” Berkeley said. “This may be slightly more difficult. I will try to keep Savos out of the direct firing line. Now off you go back to bed.”

&n
bsp; “I would like to hold you, for a moment.”

  “Can’t you hold Savos?”

  “He is asleep,” she reminded him. “And besides, nowadays he is seldom very hard. I would like to hold a hard one.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t oblige, right this moment.” Which was not altogether true.

  Martina smiled. “I will attend to it,” she said, and opened his dressing gown.

  Her touch was cool and gentle. He supposed two could play at that game, and opened her dressing gown in turn, to caress her breasts.

  “Would you like me to stay?” she asked. “There is no risk of Alexandros awakening.”

  “I would like you to stay,” Berkeley said. “But you’re not going to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Savos is my friend, and in this instance, my comrade. I do not commit adultery with the wives of my friends and comrades.”

  Her head tilted back. “But you know that we are not truly married.”

  “You are in his eyes.”

  “You can sit there, beside me, naked, and not wish to have sex with me?”

  “What I wish, and what I am going to do, are not necessarily the same things.”

  She released him, stood up, tied her dressing gown cord. “If anything happens to Alexandros,” she said. “Will you take care of me?”

  “If I can. You do realise that I am married? And that I love my wife.”

  “I will be your mistress.”

  Shades of Julia, he thought. But this young woman was most definitely not Julia.

  “I have promised that Alexandros will not be killed,” he said.

  In the morning he left the Savoses to do their own thing, sent Lockwood to check out their tickets and the railway timetables leading south, then went to the offices of the Volkischer Beobachter.

  “Frau Lipschuetz?” asked the clerk. “Why, yes, sir, she is one of our leading columnists.”

  “Thank heavens for that,” Berkeley said. “We are old friends. May I see her, please?”

  “I am sorry, but she is not here.”

  “You mean she is not in the office. When will she be back?”

  “I cannot say, sir. She is not in Munich.”

  Damnation, Berkeley thought. But it was too much to expect that every part of his jigsaw would simply fall into place. “Where is she?”

  “She is in Berlin, on assignment.”

  Again, damnation. “I see. And if I decided to go to Berlin, where might I find her?”

  “I believe she is staying with a friend. But we have an office in Berlin. They will be able to help you.”

  He gave Berkeley a card.

  If I decide to go to Berlin, he thought, as he left the office. He simply couldn’t risk that, as long as his target remained in Munich. He would have to try somewhere else. He snapped his fingers. The Countess von Rosen. Both she and Goering had seemed to like him when they had met in 1920.

  “Should Frau Lipschuetz return, in the next day or two,” he said, “will you tell her I asked after her, and that I am staying at the Hotel Kaiser.”

  “Certainly, sir,” the clerk agreed, and made a note.

  Berkeley hailed a taxi.

  “The Countess von Rosen’s residence?” the driver asked. “You mean the Goering residence.”

  So, after all, she had got her divorce and married the air ace.

  “That’s what I mean,” he said.

  “Are you a purchaser?”

  “Come again?”

  “The house is for sale,” the taxi-driver explained.

  “Oh? Why?”

  The driver shrugged while he negotiated the traffic. “They do not wish to live here any more.”

  “But they are here now?”

  “I think Frau Goering is here. I do not know about Herr Goering.”

  Again, damnation, Berkeley thought. Now nothing was going according to plan.

  The door was opened by a smartly uniformed maid. “Colonel Townsend,” she said, somewhat doubtfully, studying his card.

  “Herr Goering and I are old friends,” Berkeley assured her.

  She looked more doubtful yet, but showed him into the well-remembered drawing room. “I will take the card upstairs.”

  Left to himself, Berkeley wandered about the room, trying to remember some of the people who had been here on that night five years ago. Trying to determine, also, which of them he might have to kill, either to get at the Fuehrer or away again. Hess? He thought that was very likely; the young man had been very much Hitler’s shadow. Goering himself? He sincerely hoped not. He had liked the big man, for all his bombast.

  The doors behind him opened, and he turned.

  “Colonel Townsend,” Carin Goering said. “What a pleasant surprise.” There could be no doubt that the greeting was genuine.

  “I hope I’m not intruding,” Berkeley said. “But I happened to be in Germany on holiday, and I thought I’d call.”

  “But that was very nice of you. You are fortunate to have caught me. I am only here for a few days, and then I return to Sweden.”

  “Ah. Is Herr Goering here with you?”

  Carin gazed at him for a few seconds, then gestured him to a chair. She rang the bell, then sat herself. “You will take coffee?” she asked as the maid appeared.

  “Thank you.”

  She nodded, and the woman withdrew. “Hermann is in Sweden,” she said. “You understand that there have been certain developments, since you were last here.”

  “Well, of course I read about the attempted coup. But I thought that had all been sorted out, with the Fuehrer’s release from prison.”

  “The Fuehrer,” Carin remarked, “has this happy knack of landing on his feet. Even if he were to fall from an aeroplane he would still walk away. Not everyone is so fortunate.” She paused while the maid brought in the coffee on a silver tray, and withdrew.

  “I heard that Hermann had been wounded,” Berkeley ventured. “But the coup was two years ago. Do you mean the wound was more serious than was thought?”

  “Hermann was shot in the groin, Colonel. That is always serious.”

  “You mean he has not recovered?”

  She gave a little shrug, and poured coffee. “If he were to walk into this room now, you would say he had recovered. He is even working again, when he can, as a commercial pilot, in Scandinavia.”

  “When he can?”

  She sighed. “What is the use in prevaricating? The truth of the matter is fairly well known. Hermann is at this moment in a mental institution in Sweden.”

  “A . . .” Berkeley stared at her with his mouth open.

  “Oh, he is not mad. This sanatorium also deals in drug rehabilitation. What happened, you see, is that when he was shot he was in tremendous pain, and as he was also on the run from the police, the only sedative drug available to us was morphine. So, using morphine, we were able to get him out of the country. But it took time, days in hiding, while we had constantly to increase the dosage because of his pain. So we finally got him to Sweden, and he was operated on, and everything seemed fine. Only then we discovered . . .” she sighed again.

  “That he was addicted,” Berkeley suggested.

  She nodded. “We kept it as quiet as possible, and so he got this job flying for a Scandinavian airline . . . well, we needed the money. But earlier this year the problem became acute. That is why I am here, to sell this house, to pay for the treatment he is undergoing.”

  “But he will be cured?”

  She shrugged. “So they say. But we do not know.”

  “I am very sorry,” Berkeley said. He had come to Munich to commit murder, and there could be no doubt that were Goering to be standing beside Hitler when the fatal shot was fired, he might well have to go as well. Yet his feelings were genuine.

  She smiled at him. “That is very kind.”

  There was nothing more to say, about Goering.

  Berkeley stood up. “It was good of you to receive me. Do give Hermann my best regards, and tell
him I hope he is soon well again.”

  Carin stood also. “I will do that. And thank you.”

  “There’s just one thing,” Berkeley said. “I had hoped, as I am in Munich, to be able to see the Fuehrer again. Can you tell me if he is in town?”

  “I imagine he is. The Party always has a big celebration, in November, on the anniversary of the coup.” Her mouth twisted. “The attempted coup. But as to whether he is actually in Munich at this moment, I cannot say. He spends a lot of time at Berchtesgaden.”

  “Berchtesgaden?”

  “It is a small village, high in the Alps, and close to the Austrian border. I have never been there, but I believe the views are stupendous.”

  Berkeley could hardly believe his ears. Talk about luck! A small village, close to the Austrian frontier . . . no matter that he had hoped to escape through Switzerland; anywhere out of Germany was good enough.

  “He has a place there?”

  “No, no,” Carin said. “I believe his book is selling well . . . have you read his book?”

  “Yes,” Berkeley said, stretching the point a little. But he had glanced at it.

  “Well, as I say, it seems to be popular. But there is not a lot of money yet. He takes rooms in a boarding house. I think the usual one is called The Look Out. Your best bet would be Hess. You remember Rudolf?”

  “I do indeed.”

  “Well, he is virtually Hitler’s secretary now. Do you know he actually went to the prison every day during Hitler’s term, and copied out Mein Kampf as it was dictated? He will tell you where the Fuehrer is, and how to get in touch with him.”

  “Thank you. I will do that. Again, my best wishes to Herrmann. And yourself.”

  He still could hardly believe his good fortune. From nothing going according to plan, he had suddenly been presented with a perfect scenario.

  He returned to the hotel, found Lockwood waiting for him.

  “Any sign of the Savoses?”

  “No. You told them to spend the day sight-seeing.”

  “That’s right. Well, we are going to do a little sight-seeing of our own this afternoon. I’d like you to hire a car after lunch, and we’ll take a drive into the mountains.”

  Lockwood raised his eyebrows, but knew his employer would tell him whatever he needed to know, in due course.