by Glenn Meade
The man smiled again. “It was he I just spoke to.”
“The young man was tall. A scar on his right cheek.”
The receptionist scratched his head. “No. Ricardes is not tall. And a scar? No, certainly not. I don’t understand, señor.”
But Kruger did. Kruger understood. His mind was racing. And he tried to focus his cold fury. He waved a dismissive hand at the man behind the desk. “A misunderstanding, obviously.” Then he stepped back a pace, as though remembering something. “Excuse me, but I think I’ve left something in the suite.”
The man smiled. “Of course, señor. Gracias.”
Kruger turned and crossed quickly to where Schmidt, the silver-haired man, and Meyer waited, the three men sensing his disquiet.
“I think,” Kruger said in a voice as cold and icy as death, “I think we may have a problem.”
• • •
Hernandez heard the room-service waiter pass by his door, saw the flash of the man’s white coat, and glimpsed his face. It was a different waiter this time. He waited until the man had knocked several times, and, receiving no reply, had taken a plastic key card from his pocket and inserted it in the door. As he stepped inside, Hernandez moved forward, closed his door, and crossed the hallway quickly.
He followed the waiter into the suite; the bemused man turned to look at him.
“Señor?”
Hernandez pretended to search through his pockets as he smiled. “I was just about to leave, but I think I have left my glasses in the bathroom. Would you be so kind as to fetch them for me?”
“Of course.” The waiter crossed to the bathroom, switched on the light, and stepped inside.
Hernandez knelt beside the trolley and fumbled for the tiny transmitter taped underneath.
• • •
In the lobby, Kruger wasted no time. He acted quickly. In such matters he had sole responsibility, and now he exercised it. He gripped Meyer’s arm.
“Take the chief and go outside to the car. Tell Kurt he’s to drive you both to Franz’s place and wait there until you hear from me. Tell the other driver to stay with the second Mercedes and remain at the entrance to the lobby. Werner is to go to the rear of the hotel. If there’s a fire exit, tell him to wait by it. Give Rotman and Werner a description of the waiter who came to our room. Tall, dark-haired, young, perhaps thirty. Scar on his right cheek. As soon as they see him, I want him killed. Tell them, Meyer. I want him killed.”
Kruger saw the silver-haired man look grimly at him, an uncharacteristic fury in his voice.
“I want him found, Hans.” The man’s voice almost shook. “No matter what it takes.”
Kruger gave a sharp nod of his head. The silver-haired man went past, Meyer beside him, and strode quickly toward the exit.
Kruger beckoned to Schmidt. Both men walked rapidly toward the elevator.
• • •
“I’m sorry, señor, I can’t find your glasses. You’re sure you left them in the bathroom?”
As the waiter came out of the bathroom, Hernandez smiled and stood up from the trolley. He held up the glasses in his hand, the microphone-receiver already in his pocket.
“How stupid of me. I must have dropped them . . . here they are. But thank you for your help.”
“No problem, señor.”
Hernandez allowed the waiter to pass with the trolley. “I’ll just check that I left nothing else behind.”
“Of course, señor.” The man left, closing the door after him.
Hernandez examined the room. The men who had been here were professionals. They would have been careful not to leave anything behind. He checked nonetheless. Finding nothing, he stepped from the room, closed the door after him.
He crossed the corridor and went into his room. A minute later he had stepped outside again, dragging his suitcase after him. He closed the door, saw the elevator open.
As the two men stepped out, Hernandez froze. There was a split second of mutual recognition, in which he felt his heart stop and saw the two men hesitate and stare at him—the dark-haired man and the big, rugged, blond bodyguard from the suite. The blond reached inside his jacket, the butt of a pistol appearing.
Hernandez swore, turned, and ran back down the corridor toward the fire-exit doors.
“Halt!” A rush of feet came from behind him as the shout in German rang out.
Hernandez reached the doors and pushed through. He raced down the emergency stairwell, the suitcase banging against the walls, slowing him. He cursed its weight, hearing the racing footsteps behind him on the stairs.
“Alto! Alto!” The voice was shouting in Spanish now, but Hernandez was intent on reaching the safety of the car, taking two, three steps at a time as he descended the stairwell rapidly. He came to the ground-floor exit ten seconds later, his chest heaving. As he pushed open the emergency doors and burst out into the darkness, he hesitated.
No!
He heard the men racing down the stairwell behind him. If he didn’t slow them quickly, he’d never reach the car. He scanned the area frantically, saw the row of metal garbage bins nearby. Thrusting out his free hand, he grasped one of the metal lids, turned in the same movement, placed the lid on the ground, and kicked, wedging the lid between the base of the metal doors and the concrete.
He raced toward the car, reached the Buick just as he heard the fists pounding madly on the doors behind him, the voice raised in frantic anger.
“Sind Sie da, Werner? Werner!”
Fists beat on the metal like a roll of mad drums, but the wedge held. Hernandez flung the suitcase into the car and climbed in, the voice from behind the door louder, more desperate.
“Werner! Schnell!”
Hernandez fumbled to insert the key in the ignition. The key found its mark, and he switched the car on.
The engine spluttered and died.
Hernandez felt every drop of blood drain from his body. “No! Please! Not now! Start, please start!”
He turned the key again, pumped the accelerator, turning at the same time that he heard the deafening noise behind him, the grating sound of metal scraping on concrete as the garbage lid gave way and the two men burst out through the emergency doors.
The Buick’s engine suddenly exploded into life. Hernandez hit the accelerator hard and the car shot forward. As he swung out into the exit lane, he saw a figure come racing toward him out of the darkness.
A man. Hernandez saw him reach into his jacket, fumble for something.
Werner . . . the man must be Werner.
Hernandez pushed the accelerator right to the floor. As the Buick rocketed forward, he flicked on the headlights and switched to high beam, saw the man shield his face from the sudden glare as he raised a pistol in his right hand. It was only a split second, but it was enough. The man twisted to the left to avoid being hit, his body crashing into the hood of a nearby car, the headlight glare catching the terror on his face.
Hernandez swung the Buick between two parked cars and drove at high speed toward the Calle Chile.
• • •
It took Kruger and the men two frantic minutes to race to the front of the hotel, where the second Mercedes waited.
The driver was already gunning the engine, saying, “What’s going on?”
Kruger was like a man possessed. He flung open the door and pulled the driver bodily from the car, climbed in, and found the phone in the glove compartment. He punched in the number desperately.
As the number dialed out on the crackling line, Kruger cursed. He heard the click, and the line was lifted at the other end.
“Sí?”
“Have we a clean line?” Kruger spoke rapidly.
“One moment.” There was a long pause. “Go ahead.”
“It’s Kruger. I’m at the hotel. We have a problem. I think someone overheard us discussing Brandenburg.”
8
ASUNCIÓN
It was dark, and the man and the two girls sat around the poolside table of the big hous
e in the wealthy suburb of Asunción, sipping drinks the manservant had brought. There were lights on under the swimming pool, giving the smooth water a turquoise color.
Franz Lieber looked across at the two beautiful young girls sitting opposite.
They were both half-caste mestizos, and very young and very ravishing, no more than seventeen, and they looked like twins. They were voluptuous, as only young girls can be, their bronzed, silky flesh protruding in all the right places. Cheap jewelry dangled from their wrists and necks, and their short, tight summer skirts displayed generous portions of their legs.
Lieber smiled and said, “My friend will be here soon. In the meantime, relax, enjoy yourselves.”
Lieber saw the girls smile. One of them leaned forward to sip her vodka, showing her figure to Lieber deliberately. Only seventeen, thought Lieber, but already she knows how to use her body like a weapon.
The wiser of the two said, “Madame Rosa says you are very generous, sí?”
Lieber grinned. “I’m always generous to girls who please me.”
The girl laughed and said, “Then I will please you very much.” She looked at her friend, and they both giggled. Lieber smiled back wolfishly. He was fifty, with thick gray hair swept back off his forehead. He was a big man and big-boned. He also had big appetites: in food and drink, as his generous belly testified, and especially in women.
Tonight he and Hans were going to enjoy themselves, spend some time with the girls. It was a favor Lieber extended to certain guests, a refreshing, stimulating end to an evening. Hans would be here soon. In the meantime, he would have some fun . . .
He smiled at the girl who had not spoken. She was fresh, not long in the business, Lieber guessed.
“What’s your name?”
“Maria.”
“Come here, Maria.”
The girl glanced at her friend. Her friend nodded, and the girl stood up slowly, came around to stand in front of Lieber. She looked good enough to eat . . .
The mobile phone on the poolside table rang. Lieber answered, “Sí?”
He heard the voice, recognized the urgency in it, and said, “One moment.”
He covered the telephone mouthpiece and turned sharply to look at the girl, then at the other. “I need to talk in private,” he said curtly. “Go inside and wait.” He gestured to the open French doors behind him, light spilling from a sumptuously furnished room beyond.
The two girls hesitated.
“Now!” Lieber roared.
The girls jumped at the sound of his voice, speaking in whispers as they crossed quickly to the open French doors. Lieber waited until they were safely inside and out of listening range, then pressed the button on the scrambling device clipped to the phone.
“Go ahead,” he said.
Lieber listened to the frantic voice.
“It’s Kruger. I’m at the hotel. We have a problem. I think someone overheard us discussing Brandenburg.”
• • •
Hernandez’s eyes flicked to the rearview mirror as he drove toward the center of the city, not knowing where to go, what to do, only that he needed to hide.
He swung the Buick left onto the Calle Chile, past the illuminated pink dome of the Pantheon on the Plaza de los Héroes. The traffic was thin, and Hernandez wove swiftly in and out of the lanes. His heart pounded with fear as he watched to see whether the twin beams of a car’s headlights would appear rapidly behind him. But none did. No one was following him. Not yet.
The red Buick was a problem. Its color made it easily identifiable, and the men had seen the car. He needed somewhere to hide it. Hernandez knew now where to go. He swung past the brightly lit Plaza de la Constitución, and down toward the river, where the streets became narrower and darker.
The warrenlike riverside barrio of La Chacarita loomed ahead, a drowsy, dark place of tin-and-cardboard shacks built on river mudflats. He could smell the river now, the rotten smell of sulfur and silt and mud, the river low. A familiar fishy odor swept into the car through the open window. At the river’s edge, he drove right and halted outside a shabby house of peeling white plaster.
Hernandez climbed out and pulled the suitcase after him. La Chacarita was for the poorest of the poor, a tough area that even the cops avoided. He locked the driver’s door and checked the others before stepping up to the house and knocking softly on the door.
Nearby, a group of old men sat chatting on the stone steps outside an old shanty dwelling. They glanced up but otherwise paid him no attention. Hernandez looked toward the river; a full moon dotted the silvery water with camelotes—floating clumps of matted waterweeds that looked like malignant bumps on the river’s surface.
He heard a scraping noise behind the door and turned back.
A girl’s voice called out softly, “Who is there?”
“It’s Rudi.”
A metal bolt rattled and a moment later the door opened. A young woman stood there in the dimly lit hallway. She wore a plain white cotton dress, and her brown eyes sparkled at her visitor. A look of innocence lit up her beautiful brown face, a look that always brought out the tenderest feelings in Hernandez.
“How’s my Graciella?” Hernandez smiled.
She smiled back shyly, her long brown hair falling about her shoulders as she looked down at the suitcase. A sudden expression of fear darkened her face. “You are going away, Rudi?”
Hernandez shook his head. “No, Graciella. But I need a place to stay until the morning.”
She didn’t ask why, simply nodded and led him inside and closed the door. She took Hernandez by the hand into a small room off to the left, with a single ancient wooden bed set against a peeling wall. Above the bed a tiny red light flickered below a picture of the Virgin, the room frugal, but spotlessly clean.
“You sleep in my room, Rudi?” The girl looked up into his eyes. Her body was full, would have been undeniably tempting to any man, but Hernandez shook his head.
“I’ll sleep on the kitchen floor, Graciella.” He smiled fondly at her and cupped her face in his hand. “Now, be a good girl and make me some yerba mate.”
The girl nodded and smiled back at him. As his hand came away from her face, she took hold of it silently and led him toward the kitchen.
• • •
It took Franz Lieber five minutes to make the necessary phone calls. When he had finished, he looked at the turquoise water of the swimming pool, its pale, icy-blue calm as smooth as a sheet of glass. In contrast, there was a rage inside Lieber.
He swore.
Just when everything was going smoothly, just when everything was coming together, some snooping Latino goes and screws it up. The man was dead once they found him, whoever he was, of that much Lieber was certain. There was no place in the city the man could hide.
How could anyone possibly have known about the meeting? Lieber ignored his drink and concentrated hard, searching for weak links, for flaws. But there were none, especially in South America, especially in Paraguay, not here, not on his territory. The only ones who knew about the meeting were top people, and they could all be trusted, of that Lieber was certain. So how?
He sighed heavily. The consequences of failure were too awesome to even contemplate. Years of planning destroyed, millions wasted. Millions. Lieber grimaced. He had invested heavily in this, in time and money, and now everything was in jeopardy.
The man would simply have to be found, no matter what resources it took. At least forty men were already scouring the city, watching the airport, the railway and bus stations, the main exit roads. Lieber hoped the man hadn’t too much of a head start. Kruger’s description of him was vague—tall, in his thirties, dark-haired, a noticeable scar on his right cheek—but the man’s big, ancient, red American car, that was something. Not many of those in Asunción.
Lieber pushed himself up from the chair angrily. The Mercedes would be here soon. He would have to get rid of the young women.
“Norberto!”
The mestizo manservan
t scurried out from the house.
“Sí, señor?”
“Take a car from the garage and drop the women off at Rosa’s.” Lieber produced his wallet, handed the servant a wad of notes. “Give them this. Tell them I don’t need them tonight.”
“Sí, señor.”
“Do it now. Pronto!”
Lieber stepped into the study, taking the phone with him. The room looked out onto the front driveway. He poured himself a generous measure of scotch and drank half of it in one swallow. As he went to stand by the window, the phone buzzed in his hand. It was Kruger.
Lieber switched on the scrambler and said, “I’ve got forty men out looking. I’m doing the coordinating.”
“The airport, the railway station?”
“All being covered. Including the main roads out of the city. I’ve issued a description of the car and the man.”
Kruger’s stern voice came down the line. “The others should be with you any minute. We want this Schwein, no matter what it takes. I’m afraid of the consequences for all of us if he isn’t found.”
Lieber swallowed. “Don’t worry, he’ll be found.”
The line clicked. As Lieber put the phone down by the window, he saw the headlights of a car sweep into the driveway and bear rapidly up the path. The Mercedes had arrived.
9
ASUNCIÓN. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 3:02 A.M.
The young woman lay sleeping on a tattered mattress by the old blackened stove.
She was seventeen, and Hernandez loved her—not the way he did his other women, but in a special way, a protective way. Graciella Campos had a mind that would have fit more comfortably into the body of a ten-year-old. In the barrio, she could have been trodden on, used, abused.
When he first met her, the men were already queuing up to use her body for a handful of Guaranis at a time. He was writing an article on the orphans in the barrio when a woman had told him about Graciella. Could Hernandez help?
When he met her, he was struck by her incredible beauty and innocence. Her grandfather guardian had died; she was penniless, and Hernandez took pity on her. He had offered to pay for a place for her outside the shantytown, this little delicate flower living in the dung pile of La Chacarita. But the child in the woman’s body had refused, was scared outside of her natural habitat. The barrio was home to her despite the grinding poverty.
