by Leon, Judith
Having decided yesterday where he’d place the statue—between “Agony” and “Terror”—he had already removed the piece that had formerly occupied the niche. The office door opened and he heard the rapid click of Braunwin’s high heels. He decided to ignore her. Perhaps she would pass on by, leave him in peace.
“Jean Paul arrives in two days,” she said. “I want him to be comfortable. I am amazed you said he could come with a woman. Still, they must have the best bungalow.”
“I assure you, Jean Paul made it clear beyond questioning that he would not come at all if the woman and her partner could not come, too.”
“He is playing with fire. If rumor leaks out about this affair, his career might well be finished. Certainly his image tarnished.”
“By the end of the week it won’t make any difference what he wants, will it? If you tell him then to ask the woman to leave, he will. You trouble yourself for nothing.”
“Perhaps.” She looked at the bronze. “You are sick, Helmut. Your mother was sick and she created a sick son. Sometimes I feel sorry for you.” She turned and left him.
His half sister was a first-class bitch. From the very beginning, their marriage had been one of convenience. Actually, more one of coercion. Shortly after their father’s death, Braunwin had discovered his secret hobby. She had been repulsed. Still, she had given him a choice: marry her and give her heirs to his family’s fortune or she would expose him.
Braunwin still baffled him. The child of their father’s life-long mistress, she had grown up, as he had, listening to their father’s visionary philosophy. But he did not understand her obsessive love for a man now long dead. She had given him Peter and Heinie, though. The boys almost made enduring her bearable.
He pulled his gloomy thoughts from Braunwin and settled them on Nova Blair. Attractive in an exotic way. He’d felt an earthy pull to her at once. The idea had floated in his mind for days that having her here would be interesting. When Jean Paul could no longer object, all sorts of possibilities would present themselves.
He patted the bronze bottom again and smiled.
Chapter 20
Five Days Before Gall
The Bavarian farmland didn’t have the picture-perfect neatness of Switzerland, but in Joe’s mind it came close. Late-summer countryside undulated outside the window of the Mercedes limo, punctuated with a barn, a field of stacked or rolled hay, a herd of brown-and-white Guernsey cows.
Wyczek made a left turn into Turm. In the limo’s left back seat, Peter Grund stared out one window. Nova sat in the middle. König laughed quietly at something she’d said.
In only minutes, tiny Turm was behind them. They were on the final leg of the seventy-mile trip from Munich. König laughed again. Nova was telling him some cock-and-bull story about getting lost in the Brazilian jungle. She seemed eagerly willing to reveal to König more about her private life than the ridiculously meager tidbits he had pried out of her with numerous, well-crafted questions.
To the south, the Alps thrust out of the horizon, blue and gray and green. Fifteen minutes later the limo glided to a halt in front of a triple-barred gate bearing the letters HCI for Hass Chemie International. Wyczek flashed a pass. The single guard—armed, Joe noted, with a holstered Sig-Sauer that matched Wyczek’s—waved them ahead.
A well-maintained, two-lane concrete road led straight south into the Compound’s heart. Dead ahead, the ninety-acre artificial lake beckoned, indigo-blue and placid in the August heat. To her right, lined up on the lake’s western shore in a two-story row, sat the chemical plant: four ultramodern, black-glass and white-concrete buildings.
The road curved left, skirting the lake’s east side. The property’s only elevated bit of topography loomed at the far end of the Compound, a hundred-foot-high, dome-shaped hill covered with heavy beech and oak forest. The hill lay within the Compound’s walls. Nestled at the base of the hill were the Hass Chemie offices and dining hall.
The road divided. Wyczek banked sharply left, up a small rise leading to the mansion. In stark contrast to the ultramodern design of every other structure on the grounds, Hass’s Tudor mansion was two stories of gray stone. To Nova this suggested a schizoid imbalance in the man’s personality. The circular drive looped around the front of the house. Wyczek braked. Even before the bodyguard could open the rear door, Helmut Hass appeared at the head of four flagstone steps.
Hass spread his arms. “Grus Gott. Welcome to all. Please. Come in.”
Wyczek leaned against the car to wait. With Grund and König, Nova accompanied Hass through the arched stone doorway. Joe followed a couple of paces behind. A butler closed the door and disappeared. The pink-and-blue eyes fixed on Nova. Again, Hass spoke in English. “It is a particular pleasure to have you, my dear.” He took her hand but instead of shaking it smoothly delivered a hand kiss with practiced skill. She resisted the urge to snatch her hand from his.
The entry walls were paneled in dark wood. A door opposite the entry led to a dining room; doors left and right led to halls. Four lighted niches flanked the doorways. Displayed in each was a half-life-size bronze statue. The place was too heavy. Too dark.
A woman and two young boys appeared at a door. “Peter, you know Braunwin and my boys. But, Mr. Cardone, Miss Blair, allow me to introduce my wife and sons.”
Braunwin was a striking, tall Nordic-looking blond, with intelligent blue eyes. Nova saw that her two young boys were also blond and good-looking.
Frau Hass’s gaze immediately settled on Jean Paul. “Herr König,” she said. She smiled with impressive warmth.
Was her interest sexual? Somehow Nova felt it wasn’t. But it was clearly intense.
To Nova’s surprise, Brawnwin Hass seemed particularly interested in her. The woman’s intelligent eyes swept over her from crown to toe. Braunwin seemed to have zero interest in Joe, something Nova rarely saw when women met him.
When it was Frau Hass’s turn to talk, her gaze flew back to rest on König’s face. She really lit up. “My sons, Heinrich and Peter,” she said with a thick but pleasant accent. It looked more and more as though English would be spoken through the week whenever she and Joe were present. “You must excuse the boys,” Brawnwin continued, her eyes still on König. “They are due in the library for their English lessons.”
The kids shook hands all around like grown-ups, then disappeared down the hallway.
“You have breathtakingly beautiful grounds,” Nova said.
Frau Hass’s gaze returned to Nova. Her eyes lost their warmth. “When the Compound was designed, we retained an excellent landscape architect. Come see the view from the dining room. It overlooks part of the lake.”
Joe watched the two women stride purposefully through the opposite door. The bronzes in the niches caught his eye. He stepped close to the one nearest, a full-length piece of a young man in Greek toga. The label said Alexander the Great.
“Is Wyczek working out well?” he heard Hass ask.
“Superb,” König answered. “I am finally becoming used to the lack of privacy, and as you know, I owe my life to him and Nova.”
“Good. Very good.”
Joe said, “This bronze is very powerful.”
“Thank you, Mr. Cardone. The works are mine. I’m gratified when I find someone who appreciates them. The others are Napoleon, Mohammed and Shih Huang-ti.”
So, a fascination with conquerors.
The women returned. Braunwin excused herself, then disappeared down the hall. Hass opened the heavy entry door again. Two golf carts had been lined up behind the Mercedes, and Wyczek was indicating which luggage should go into which cart.
Hass said, “The men will take you to your bungalows.” He gave König a pointed look. “While you are in what I like to call the residence area, in my home and all of the guest bungalows, you may be confident of complete privacy. The maids and groundsmen have been with me for years. In other areas or the plant itself, however, you will meet plant employees. More discretion will be required
. I would like to offer a tour of the facilities. As soon as you’ve settled in, if that’s agreeable.”
Jean Paul assured Hass a tour would be wonderful. Peter Grund begged off, saying that he’d been here several times and could pass on the science tour. Hass looked at his watch, then at König. “It’s now one-thirty. I shall meet you at the main office at, say, two-thirty. Just follow the brick path to the south end of the property,”
Joe picked the golf cart holding his soft-sider and laptop computer and climbed in the back seat while Grund plunked himself down alongside the driver. The little private taxi hummed down a wide brick path that joined the residence section of the complex, on the lake’s eastern shore, to the plant and research areas to the south and west.
Joe began to play the new piece of information like a bobcat plays a field mouse. How is Wyczek working out? Hass had asked. His tone suggested more than idle inquiry. Perhaps Hass had recommended Wyczek to König. Perhaps at some time, Wyczek had worked for Hass?
With the unerring instinct of a politician, Jean Paul had determined their driver’s name and that his family was from Munich before Nova finished an admiring survey of the landscaping. Rudy, their driver, deposited their bags in their quarters then disappeared, taking with him a generous tip. The trees, the lawns, the bricked walks, the flowers—all were beautiful. One wrong step, though, and she could be planted here as fertilizer for the lovely landscaping.
She stepped into Jean Paul’s embrace and hugged him. “Everything is delightful.”
Time pressed her brutally now. Even her extreme discomfort with the thought of being trapped in the Compound with a mad group of terrorists was sublimated to the obsession to stop Gall. Four days or less.
Jean Paul grasped her arm. “I expect to do more work than rest. But I’m glad you’re with me.” A slow, passionate kiss. His hand strayed to her breast. She pulled him toward the bed and he laughed.
“Oh, no, Ms. Blair. Have you forgotten we’re committed to a royal tour?”
“There’s time.” She pulled him another step toward the bed.
He laughed again, but then grabbed her hair and twisted it at the back of her head. “God, I love you.”
“Show me.”
Another kiss, his tongue searching, probing deeply as if to make them one. He pressed close and she felt the hard signal of rising passion.
He let her go with a great show of looking at his watch, pointing at the face and shaking his head. “If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. But just look at the time!”
“Agreed.” She put her hand against him and massaged. “But it seems a terrible waste.”
Together they explored the suite. It was done in shades of mauve and gray. A large living room opened onto a covered, low-walled patio overlooking an expanse of lawn and farther on, a thick patch of woods. The friendly smell of baking bread scented the air, presumably coming from the Compound’s kitchen. It seemed they would have complete privacy.
Jean Paul led her back into the living room, that possessive arm still around her. For more than a week she’d lived with the knowledge that Jean Paul was a man able to order the deaths of innocents, apparently without the slightest remorse. The morning’s “event,” to which the conspirators in Manfred Wagner’s library had alluded, had turned out to be the bombing of a British Rolls-Royce auto factory. Forty had been injured, eighteen killed.
The bedroom opened onto the same patio. She said, “I can see us breakfasting here.”
A small dining area and a kitchen with a sink, well-stocked bar and large refrigerator completed the suite. No stove.
“It’s a small house,” Jean Paul said with a smile. “We can pretend we’re at home. An old married pair.”
Marriage. Family. Kids. Impossible. To divert her thoughts, she checked her watch. “We’re supposed to be at the office in ten minutes.”
On the walk to the administration building, Jean Paul kept his arm firmly around her but removed it when they left the residential zone. Joe and Hass were already waiting.
Hass began the tour. Nova paid close attention to the layout. The administration offices, small library, dining hall and single-room clinic were all unexceptional.
Wyczek hadn’t shown up. She understood there would be no need for him in the secure residential area, but what about this more public section?
“Did you tell Wyczek he didn’t need to stay with you?” she said softly to Jean Paul.
“Helmut assures me that I needn’t worry anywhere within the Compound. They check everyone who comes in or goes out. I told Wyczek he’s more or less on his own for the week.” Jean Paul gave her a heart-stopping smile, or a smile that would have stopped her heart had she been in love with him. “One of the major benefits of being with you here is that we’ll not have to put up with a nosy Wyczek.”
From the administration building, Hass set a brisk pace toward the chemical facilities. Joe peppered Hass with questions. She had by now watched him engage enough people, men as well as women, to have a profound respect for the way his seemingly boyish enthusiasm loosened tongues. Joe’s mind was not nearly as young as she’d surmised or as he often let others think.
Green willows lined both sides of the lake. The grounds were brilliant with mature flowers and shrubs—golds, reds, blues. She smelled a hint of jasmine in the air. No feature of this idyllic scene hinted they were on their way to a chemical plant. Still, somehow the place felt oddly sterile.
Hass stopped at the entrance of the first of the four buildings. A green circle with Security—HCI printed in German was stuck to the glass pane next to the door. Inside, they were shown two laboratories. Hass seemed particularly proud of a “scanning-tunneling microscope.”
“What we do in this building,” he said, “is quality testing and advanced research on compounds that have been long-term staples of Hass Chemie. Estrotonin, our birth control drug. Our wonderful Chondroil, for arthritis. The defoliant, Autumnox. Very popular with military organizations. Even our new male reproductive enhancer, Erectril.”
They trekked, via a covered walkway connecting the second floors of all four structures, to the second building. This time they paused at the outer door. She noted another circular sign with Security—HCI in the center, this one yellow. A substantial lock secured the door. Hass pulled a pass from his pocket and inserted it into a slot in the lock. A green light flashed and he pulled the door open.
They descended a stairwell, Hass saying, “We are continually developing new products and do not wish to make life unduly easy for our competitors. Security at the gate helps. The building passes are added protection.”
At the first door on their right, Hass paused again. “I have asked our chief scientist, Dr. Sanjiv Singh, to conduct the remainder of your tour as he is more knowledgeable than myself. Frankly, I know shamefully little chemistry.”
Hass pushed the door open. Perched behind a chrome desk, a secretary smiled warmly. “He has been waiting,” she said in English. Nova hadn’t yet heard one word of German. Apparently everyone had been informed that the Americans were coming.
The secretary depressed an intercom button. “Herr Doktor Singh, Herr Hass and his guests are here.”
“I shall be out at once.” The thin voice had a pronounced Indian accent. The man who followed the sound into the room was thin and slightly stooped. The few remaining strands of his straight dark hair were slicked across his scalp. As everything else about him, his dusky lips were remarkably thin, almost to the point of nonexistent.
Hass made introductions, excused himself, then added, “Please do not forget that dinner will be in my home at eight this evening. Nothing formal.”
He left. Nova didn’t miss him. Something about Hass gave her the willies, especially when he turned those alien-pale eyes on her.
The second building extended deeper into the property, away from the lake, perhaps three times as much as the first building. “You will have noticed perhaps,” the doctor said, “that for en
trance to this building, a security card is required. That is because we manufacture our birth control pill here. In this particular building security precautions are due not so much to our concern for the research—our formula is patented—but because we have many times received threats. Not only to destroy the facilities, but personal death threats, as well. Fanatics are very frightening people.”
How very true, Nova thought. And she was at this moment conducting an affair with one of the world’s first-class ones.
The laboratories began to look pretty much the same. Even with people in the rooms, the buildings had the quiet feel of a library. Smaller rooms were dedicated to special functions, like the “centrifuge room.” The phrase “scintillation counter” stuck in her mind, as did “reverse osmosis, spectrophotometer” and “separation gel.” Only initiates could understand what it all meant, although the Indian scientist seemed to be doing his earnest best to get through to her.
Singh opened a door near the back two-thirds of the lower floor and she was hit with a familiar, musty smell. The vast room was very like a modern winery she’d once visited. The same gleaming stainless-steel vats, the musty smell that was at the same time clean.
“Here we grow the bacteria for our genetic work.” Sanjiv Singh’s voice sing-songed.
He explained how they “designed” molecules. “We then inject the prefabricated DNA into our bacteria and fool them into making the compound for us in large quantities. They are very efficient, our little friends. In our next building I shall show you the very sophisticated computer we use.”
They marched rather quickly to the third building, this one wearing an orange security patch. As Singh let them inside, Joe said to him with typical eagerness, “You know, this is fascinating stuff. I’d really like to do an article on Hass Chemie, as a successful business willing to be environmentally sound.” His voice was perfect innocence. “Could I get a security pass?”
