by Leon, Judith
She shuddered, then lay with muscles tensed, listening, afraid Jean Paul would notice. But his breathing remained slow and regular. He was asleep.
Terra eterna. Terratornis.
The pipeline employee had thought the terrorists had yelled a dinosaur name. A good guess, just not quite right. More like monster than dinosaur.
Earth Alliance had, in fact, embraced mass murder. And the man whose arm embraced her, to whom she’d hoped more dearly than she realized was innocent, was in fact a slick, handsome sociopath. And to make matters worse, somehow Jean Paul had found a weakness, a way to reach beyond the defenses she’d taken years to construct. Perhaps it was simply that the human heart, even hers, couldn’t deny forever the need to love and be loved.
She lay beside him like a stone. Two convictions hardened. No matter what the cost, she must devise a scheme to put so much pressure on Jean Paul he simply could not refuse her request to go to Bavaria. And she would stop Gall. If fate gave her any breaks at all, there would be no more killings.
When she was certain Jean Paul was in deep sleep, she slipped from beneath the sheets, threw on her trench coat and, in the wee hours of the morning in the empty, quiet lobby, called Cupid. Then Joe.
He was pleased with her deduction, more like beside himself with fly-boy Cardone enthusiasm.
She started to hang up, but she heard his voice yelling her name. She put the phone back to her ear. “Did you say something?”
“You bet,” he said in a very grave tone. “Please start being extra careful.”
Chapter 18
Munich
Joe sat and dangled one leg over the edge of Ellen Nöe’s desk. His stomach churned. He was sure this op would never work. Nova had insisted to Cupid that she must do something to win Jean Paul’s unquestioning confidence. Cupid and Nova had agreed on this plan. In Joe’s opinion, it was too dangerous, especially for Nova.
Ellen gave him a big smile and said, with utter lack of conviction, “I’ll be in terrible trouble if Peter Grund finds you sitting on my desk.”
He leaned close and whispered. “Grund is a prick.”
She giggled and nodded.
Wyczek’s little pig eyes never rested. The bullnecked guard with the Vandyke beard and billiard-ball head sat against the far wall, watching everyone who came in. And watching Joe charm Ellen. Joe shot her a medium-hot smile. “How about a drink after Nova and I get back from the photo shoot?”
The swinging glass door behind him made a whooshing sound. He turned. Nova strolled in. He set his jaw—the op was beginning. She was doubtless on time, so it was two-twenty on the dot. At two-thirty, plus or minus a minute, they must exit the building. It had been decided that midafternoon was best since there would be little foot or auto traffic. Timing of the individual elements was going to be tricky. He thought again that the whole scheme was not just tricky, it was dangerously nuts.
Nova was dressed for a photo shoot—or a rescue: khaki slacks, long-sleeved green silk blouse rolled to the elbows, loafers. “Hi, Ellen. Joe.” She nodded to Wyczek.
Looking at Joe she said, “You look like you’re making yourself right at home.”
Peter Grund’s door opened and the man stalked three paces into the room, already wearing his lightweight summer suit jacket. He snorted. “Let’s go. I need to be back early. And get your butt off Ellen’s desk, Cardone.”
In the trade, a good sense of time was critical. Joe had learned to estimate time’s passage under differing conditions: when bored, or excited, or scared shitless. Nova had taken the same training. He knew, and figured she did, too, that they were in the ballpark of three minutes too early. Even given the leeway built into the plan, they needed to stall.
Grund, unfortunately, was in high gear. He marched to König’s door, thumped twice and opened it. “I’d like to leave. I must be back as early as possible.”
König came out, shrugging into his suit coat. “Fine with me.”
Wyczek stood. Nova caught Joe’s eye. Unstated message: we have to stall. They all headed for the door. In the hallway, Wyczek touched the elevator button and its door sucked open.
“Nice earrings,” Joe muttered to Nova for no good reason. Maybe it was to wish her good luck.
The men waited for Nova to enter, then crowded in after her. They descended. The elevator gave a little termination heave and made its sucking sound as the door opened. The men parted for Nova. Wyczek followed her out, his gaze darting into every corner. Between the elevator and the entrance, stores lined the ground level. They were still more than two minutes early. Grund and König stepped out, and Nova delivered the prearranged stall. “Jean Paul, I missed lunch today. Would you mind if I buy something at the gift shop?”
“Of course not.”
Dithering a believable bit over her choice, she settled on a packet of candy-coated chocolates and paid at the cash register. Each time Joe had done a dry run of purchasing anything here, he’d felt like he was in line to buy Superbowl tickets. Unfortunately, Nova was relieved of her money in what had to be the place’s all-time record speed.
He was deciding whether to use up time begging Nova for candy or do what the plan called for next and capture Grund’s attention when Grund started to join König. “Herr Grund,” Joe snapped, “have you had time to read the article I gave you?” The question worked. Grund slowed.
Wyczek was stuck like Velcro to his boss’s right side. Nova moved quickly to Jean Paul’s left side. Success required that she, König and Wyczek be the first to exit, and in exactly that configuration. He and Grund should exit behind them. But the clock in Joe’s head said the operative assigned to distract Wyczek wouldn’t be in place yet.
He was a millisecond from purposely tripping over his feet and flattening himself on the floor when candy-coated chocolates began raining on the marble entry, jumping and pinging and rolling. “Oh, dear!” Nova said as she held her hands out and looked surprised.
Joe grinned tightly, impressed with her improvisation. She dropped to one knee.
Grund grunted. “Leave the damn stuff.”
König, reaching a hand down to Nova, said, “Let’s just push it off to the side. Wyczek, buy another bag while we brush this out of the way.”
The bodyguard frowned, so far his only known expression. For Wyczek to leave König’s side in a public place was unthinkable.
Nova said, “I’ll buy them.”
Joe and the men played miniature soccer with the colored candies. When she rejoined them, the group headed for the door, everyone in proper position.
“So, did you have a look at the article?” Joe asked to distract Grund again. Grund took over the talking. For the moment Joe didn’t have to think what to say. His eyes should be fixed on Wyczek but they kept flicking to Nova. God, he hated this whole setup. He hated working with this woman—because he hated being worried for her.
They walked out the door into a blast of warm sun. Along the block he counted only five pedestrians and, as expected, only light traffic.
Right on time, the agent appeared. Even knowing she’d be there, Joe blinked in amazement. Blond-white hair punked in spikes, flaming red lipstick, a leather miniskirt tighter than a snake’s skin and the billowing reek of cheap perfume.
König looked right, to where the limo was parked. Nova searched left, undoubtedly looking for the black BMW. The punk-looking agent stepped into Wyczek’s path. In German, she said, “I really could use an ecu or two, sweetie. Have you something to spare?”
Joe followed Nova’s gaze. There the BMW was, still on a proper course on the street. The car swerved slightly toward König. Wyczek saw it. He thrust his hand inside his coat. Hesitated. The BMW was definitely coming at the five of them.
Wyczek hauled his Sig-Sauer out of its holster. The spike-haired chick should stumble into him.
Done!
But Wyczek stepped right, his left hand forcing the woman down as he got off a shot.
An ear-stunning kapow, and the BMW’s winds
hield shattered.
The spiky-haired agent headed for the nearest door.
Another shot at the BMW from Wyczek.
Joe’s wildly thumping heart jumped into his throat. Hell. Their driver might have taken a hit. Sure enough, the BMW curved toward them too sharply.
“Jean Paul,” Nova yelled.
She threw herself against König, shoving the politician backward several steps, out of harm’s way. He fell. The car careened off the pavement, onto the walk, heading for Nova.
Joe knew he wouldn’t reach her in time. The sidewalk felt like glue to his feet. He fought to take one sticky stride toward her and then another. The fender caught her right hip; he heard a sickening thump and the sound of her hand slapping against the hood.
The BMW jerkily angled back to the street. With a screeching crunch, it took off the limo’s left rear taillight and sped away. Another step through glue. Nova whirled to her left, a missile aimed directly for the granite and plate-glass building front. One more step. God. Please. No!
Joe grabbed at her. Still she spun. The sound of ripping silk registered as one of her blouse’s shoulder epaulets came off in his hand, but mercifully he’d stopped her forward motion.
Nova collapsed onto the street.
He fell down beside her. “Jesus, God, Nova.” Her eyes were open but unfocused.
König scrambled to her other side. He snatched her hand and clutched it. He looked as dazed as she. “Nova?” His face was ashen.
The sonofabitch is going to faint.
“Nova?” König said again, choking out her name. He started to rock back and forth.
“I’m…okay.” The words were spaced with a week between them.
With the speed of a hooker guarding her favorite corner, Peter Grund latched on to König. “We’re in public, Jean Paul. Take hold of yourself.”
Grund switched to German and yelled to Wyczek, who faced the street, pivoting with the gun as he repeatedly scanned left and right. Nova’s eyes started to clear. Grund and Wyczek pulled König away from her. König fought to shake them off.
Grund pushed König farther from Nova, saying, “Let Joe take care of her.” Wyczek blocked König’s attempts to throw Grund off as the campaign manager continued to mutter wise words of counsel in his candidate’s ear.
Joe couldn’t stop himself. “I told you—damn—I said this was crazy,” he whispered.
Their dangerous escapade had gathered a small crowd. Joe searched their faces. “Could someone call an ambulance?”
Nova whispered, sounding angry, “You really think I’m crazy.”
He didn’t answer her. From behind him, a member of their op team, a chunky Bavarian matron, reassured him in English, “Someone’s already called an ambulance.”
God how fragile Nova looked.
The matron handed him her sweater. “For her head.”
His hands shaking, he raised Nova’s head just high enough to slide the sweater under.
“Jean Paul?” she asked.
“Fine. He’s just fine. Grund and Wyczek are trying to calm him down. He was on his way to flipping out right here on the street.”
And if Nova had been—With heart-stopping certainty he knew that if Nova had been seriously hurt, or worse, König wouldn’t have been the only one to flip out. Maybe because she was unlike any woman he had ever known. A dove with the heart of a falcon.
She grasped his hand and squeezed it. “Thanks, Joe. That wall was coming up fast.”
“Where do you hurt?” König had squirmed out of Wyczek’s bear hug to kneel beside her. “You shouldn’t move. There is an ambulance coming.” He was pleading.
She shook her head. “I’m okay. Really.”
Wyczek loomed over them. In a gruff voice he said, “It’s not safe out here, Herr König. Come back inside.”
“Leave me alone, Wyczek. Goddamn it. He’s not going to come back for another try.”
Nova moved, as though she was trying to sit up. She sucked in a breath and gingerly touched her hand to her hip.
König, moments ago looking as white as milk, now glowed as red as a tomato. “I insist, Nova. Don’t move.”
Joe couldn’t have agreed more. He saw her bite her lower lip and rub her side where the car had hit her. It had to hurt like hell, but she didn’t flinch.
Like figures in a Christmas tableau, they held their places for a minute or so. The ambulance arrived and a medical team in whites checked her out. They strapped on a neck brace and lifted her carefully onto a gurney, then moved her into the van.
König started to climb into the back. Grund grabbed his arm, protesting in English, low but firm, that he wanted König to avoid any appearance of entanglement with Nova.
König gave Grund a withering look and said, “You and Joe see to the dedication, Peter. Make my excuses.”
With the ambulance’s red light flashing, Nova and König were quickly gone, Wyczek with them.
Joe prayed Nova had no broken bones. Nothing inside busted up.
A policeman arrived and zeroed in on him and Grund. Questions followed.
Later, when he and Grund were in the limo, Grund, still pale, turned pensive. “If she hadn’t seen the car and pushed him, Jean Paul could have been—well—I hate to think what could have been. She may well have saved his life.”
“Yeah,” Joe said.
“I certainly hope she’ll be okay.”
“Yeah,” he repeated, a prize-winning understatement. “Me, too.”
Chapter 19
Munich—August 7
Eight Days Before “Gall”
Nova had noticed Cupid had a habit of rinsing his gold-rimmed banker’s glasses and then wiping them with a handkerchief of purest white linen. He rose and disappeared into the hotel room’s small bathroom. Over the sound of running water, Nova heard him say, “A number of research complexes in Germany work similarly.”
While she and Joe waited for their chief of station’s return, Joe said, “How’s the hip today?”
“Better and better by the hour. It’s sore, but even a deeply bruised and aching hip beats having a shattered elbow like the poor BMW driver.”
She studied Joe’s face as he tore a napkin in the process of creating a paper bird. He was quite good at origami. Was he as delighted as she was at the prospect of spending a week isolated in the Bavarian countryside with König and his cronies, a vacation scheduled to begin in two days? Precisely as she had planned, Peter Grund had relented, bowing to the hurricane force of Jean Paul’s insistence that he wasn’t going to leave her for a week and that her assistant must come, too. She’d won that battle.
Cupid reappeared, drying his glasses. “World-class outfits, like some of the Max Planck Institutes, are essentially small, contained communities. They provide work, housing and recreation for all their employees. By the way, everyone—employees and staff—call the core area of the place ‘the Compound.’”
Helmut Hass was now highly suspect. Joe was convinced that Jean Paul König was The Founder, but Cupid remained neutral. He conceded only that Detlev Kleitman probably was not since Nova’s description of the conspirators’ conversation suggested Kleitman took orders rather than gave them.
Nova frowned. “I think it’s bizarre, living holed-up like a baron in some Medieval fortress castle. And how did he get involved with pharmaceuticals? What are his credentials? You don’t get fancy training in chemistry through home study.”
Cupid readjusted his glasses over his ears, one slender gold arm and then the other. “Hass inherited this mega-pharmaceutical from his mother’s side of the family. The father was a history professor. Heidelberg University. Some sort of political and ecological visionary. His writings explain Hass’s strong environmental views. Hass senior dropped dead of a bad heart at forty-eight. Hass’s uncle—his mother’s brother—ran things before Hass took over. The two men had a nasty fight over leadership. Hass took over when the uncle had a fatal—somewhat suspicious—car accident.”
A
t the phrase “Bavarian complex,” Nova’s mind, like a determined hound, returned to sniff again at her principle worry. The isolation. The core area of the property—the mansion, chemical plant and artificial lake—occupied six hundred acres. An attractive brick wall encircled the area. Outside the wall lay another thousand-plus acres of undeveloped land all owned by Hass: fields and small stands of forest. The lands had few roads, and they and the wall were patrolled by guards in vans—ostensibly because Hass frequently entertained prestigious houseguests who valued their privacy. She would also feel isolated because Hass had a No Cell Phones rule and, assuming that their luggage might be searched, they had agreed she and Joe would go phoneless.
Hass Chemie’s employees could eat breakfast and lunch in a company dining hall, but they all resided off the property, most in the small village of Turm, two miles away. Compound security wasn’t especially tight. Anyone could come and go, but visitors had to secure a pass at the gate. Joe asked, “Any luck getting someone on the grounds?”
Cupid steepled his finger over his generous belly. “Sorry. We’ve tried everything we can without rousing suspicion. The nontechnical positions are all filled by people from Turm who’ve held them for years. There are no openings of any kind for nonskilled workers. And Hass doesn’t hire foreign technicians.”
Nova felt as though the Blair and Cardone team was set to be launched into barracuda-infested waters in a potentially leaky boat, lacking a life raft. Davidson had a room in Turm, but Turm was two miles from the Compound. Nova would be with Joe at the Compound for the entire week—without immediate backup.
The Founder’s Compound
With one final grunt, he maneuvered the half-life-size bronze of the naked girl on her knees, bent over and fully exposed, onto the cart. He patted her rear end, thinking again that “Invitation” was perhaps his greatest triumph. He stroked her buttocks, felt a warm sexual stirring, and grinned. He pushed the cart to the studio door, opened it, returned to the cart and pushed it into the brightly lit underground corridor.
