12 Drummers Drumming

by Diana Deverell

  “Bert,” I began.

  The seams in his face had deepened to grooves. “The major told me,” he said in a worn voice. “You all right?”

  “Alive.” I took a deep breath, wanting to say more about Erika, not knowing how.

  My father spoke first, his tone irritated. “Kathryn. You and the others have to leave us alone now. We’re right in the middle of something.” He gathered up the cards, formed them into a pile. “Come back later, there’s a good girl.” He shuffled noisily.

  “I’ll cut them, if you don’t mind,” Bert said to my father. He reached for the deck, waved me away without looking up. Maybe no better than I was at dealing with death.

  I went back to the barren main room. The lighted kitchen area floated in the darkness, like a solitary vessel abandoned on a night sea. Holger sat in the center of the table’s long side, empty chairs flung haphazardly around him. I’d never seen him smoke, but the ashtray in front of him was full of cigarette stubs. Smoky trails drifted in front of the shop lights and hazed his face so I couldn’t read his expression. I started toward him.

  Cold wind ruffled my hair. Van Hoof was holding the entry door open. The same German doctor came through it. Van Hoof waved a hand toward me, saying something about Stefan. The doctor nodded, then strode toward the table. Van Hoof holstered his pistol, shut and bolted the door and moved toward the second cubicle, a dim light marking Stefan’s whereabouts.

  By the time the doctor reached the table, I’d taken the chair closest to Holger and peeled the homemade bandage off my leg. The doctor prodded my wound and handed me a bottle of isopropyl alcohol and a packet of sterile pads. He glanced at the cut above my eye, gave a dismissive sniff. Van Hoof reappeared, asked a question in German. The doctor muttered a word I took to mean “superficial.” He doled out rolls of gauze and adhesive tape, then hurried off to the room where Stefan waited.

  Van Hoof rummaged on the counter, shoving the instant-coffee jar aside. Canned goods clattered onto the floor. His hand was around the long neck of a whiskey bottle, which he thumped on the table, next to the ashtray. He found a glass, poured two inches of amber liquid, then tossed it back. A second shot followed. He kept the half-full glass in one hand as he dragged a chair around to face Holger.

  A plastic tumbler rolled into my foot. I bent to retrieve it, set it beside the bottle. Without a word, Holger picked up the bottle, filled the tumbler. I slid the drinking glass toward me, smelled the pungent odor of Scotch. The smooth heat slid down my throat. I ran my tongue over my lips, sweeping in the peaty flavor of single malt. A famous whiskey, one distilled only a few kilometers from the Global 500 crash site. Like a lost soul, I’d come full circle from the first disaster to the unimaginable horror soon to follow.

  I brushed my fingers over my forehead. Blood had dried in the cut, forming a scab. I left it alone. I turned my leg to see the three-inch furrow across the meat of my calf. New blood oozed from the wound. I swallowed the bitter dregs of my failure and tried not to make a sound as I swabbed my leg with the other kind of alcohol.

  Van Hoof swirled the liquid in his glass, staring only at it. Methodically, he reported what had happened in Meissen, what we’d done, what we’d concluded about Krüger’s twelfth-night program. After he finished, the only sound was the plink of water from the faucet, dripping into the metal sink.

  My nostrils burned from the smell of the alcohol. My wound was wetly red and stung. I felt Holger looking at me and I raised my eyes to meet his gaze. “The problem was with the undercover intelligence,” I said.

  Van Hoof’s voice was a growl. “Are we back to that?” He glared at me. “Holger knows his agents. Gorm passed on everything he could safely obtain. He’s not responsible for our failure.”

  “I don’t blame Gorm,” I said. “But all of the Gorm information—in particular the list of places where Stefan might be imprisoned—all of that was carefully calculated so I would walk into a trap. It was coming straight from Krüger.”

  Holger addressed van Hoof. “Kathryn’s right. He wanted to guarantee we would not attempt to rescue Stefan.”

  The Belgian said, “You think Krüger discovered Gorm?”

  “That conclusion is inescapable now,” Holger replied, his voice weary. “Clearly, by mid-December, Krüger was using Gorm to pass false information. Certainly the items intended to lure Stefan on board Global 500. After that flight exploded, Gorm had to realize what had happened. But before he could let me know, Krüger intervened. He extracted our recognition codes from Gorm, then killed him. Krüger used Gorm’s channels to mislead us. He did it so well I was not certain until now.”

  I was distracted by the astringent inflaming my leg and only a part of my conscious mind followed the conversation that continued between Holger and van Hoof. I’d figured out earlier that Krüger had used—and executed—Gorm. He’d carefully calibrated the leakage of information to bolster Holger’s conviction that Gorm was still functioning effectively.

  I bandaged my wound and found my clothes, stacked on the floor at one end of the counter. I removed the coat I’d worn to Meissen, then carefully pulled my jeans on under the skirt before I discarded it, too. The warmth of the Scotch relaxed me and while I put on my socks and tied my boots, pieces of information slowly rearranged themselves in my brain, as though someone were moving tiles around in a mosaic, making me see all the facts in a new way.

  A phrase that Krüger had used about Stefan came back to me: Those who have vowed to punish him for his crimes. Those words had a religious fervor. Krüger had to appease whoever had taken that vow. He couldn’t be finished with his brother, not yet.

  My nerve ends came alive. Silently, I inhaled and exhaled quick breaths through my mouth. I didn’t have any evidence to back up my theory. I couldn’t marshal facts that would convince Holger on an intellectual level. But then, it wasn’t Holger’s intellect I needed to address.

  “Krüger did it so well.” I repeated a phrase I’d heard Holger speak, my voice matter-of-fact despite my excitement. “He’s studied us for years, learned how each of us thinks. Made himself an expert at our manipulation. He enmeshed us in an elaborate charade to make us think he’d defect to the U.S.A. Now he’s calculated precisely how to lead us to the conclusion that he’s en route to Libya.”

  “Of course he’s on his way there,” van Hoof said. “What amazes me is that he didn’t go to Tripoli last November. He should have left as soon as the international press started reprinting that news photo with him in it. Absconding then would have been the prudent thing to do.”

  “Prudent, yes.” I leaned toward van Hoof, wanting to make him pay attention to this exchange between me and Holger. “But if he behaved that rationally, he wouldn’t be in Berlin now.”

  “You think he’s here?” Holger’s tone was skeptical. “Hardly the most direct route to Libya.”

  My eyes still on van Hoof, I said, “I’m certain Krüger’s here.”

  Holger sniffed. “Your ‘certainty’ has no grounding in fact. Coming to Berlin would pose unacceptable hazards to him.”

  “Except,” I said slowly, “we know that escaping to safety is not Krüger’s only goal. If it were, he’d have continued to mislead you about his true intentions. He wouldn’t have let us discover that he’d eliminated Gorm. And he wouldn’t have provoked the German police into pursuing him.”

  Holger had grown still and he was watching me intently. “You’re saying he has another, competing goal?”

  “The man must destroy Stefan.” I paused, then spoke directly to van Hoof in the intimate tones of scholarly comrades. “History offers examples of similar behavior. Especially recent history.”

  I had van Hoof’s full attention now. I pressed on. “You’re thinking of Hitler, right?” I was betting that, like all old soldiers, van Hoof knew how the Führer had sabotaged the German war effort by diverting resources to exterminate the Jews.

  Van Hoof’s expression was thoughtful. “Krüger might well be in Berlin.”
<
br />   “Definitely,” I said. “He promised Stefan’s enemies that Stefan would be punished. He knows they won’t be pleased if he fails to keep that promise. So he’s got that incentive, fear of Libyan displeasure.” I was leaning halfway across the table now, so close I could see the alert interest in the Belgian’s eyes. “But what’s driving him is his obsessive hatred of Stefan. Krüger’s like an alcoholic drinking himself to death. He can’t stop. He put his entire terrorist program in jeopardy, trying to eliminate Stefan. He’s got to be here, ready to try again.”

  Holger’s eyes went from me to van Hoof, then back again to me. He was erect, spine stiff, a chess player trying to anticipate my next move. “What is the point of speculating this way?” he asked. “If Krüger is still obsessed with Stefan, what of it? How could we find him in all of Berlin?”

  I didn’t speak, just let the silence build while I waited.

  Van Hoof didn’t disappoint me. He said, “I know precisely where to find him.” The words were carefully chosen. But the pace was too fast, the tone too triumphant. He’d taken the bait.

  Holger knew it, too. The lines at both corners of his eyes tightened, then relaxed. As close as he might come to a wince.

  “Krüger is with the Libyans at their office near Potsdamer Platz.” Van Hoof made a thoughtful murmur through closed lips, but he cut it off too abruptly to have it sound like authentic rumination. “I have an excellent plan for getting into that building.”

  “You can’t succeed,” Holger objected. “Not without more people.”

  “Is that true?” I asked van Hoof, sure of the answer.

  “No. A large force isn’t necessary.” Van Hoof looked at me, the ceiling, the floor, before he continued. “You, me, Holger. And Hilly-Anne and Danièle will return soon. They’ll want to help, I’m sure of that. The five of us could do it.”

  “Preposterous,” Holger said, as I’d expected him to. “It would be an impossible job for only five people.”

  I said, “But not for GSG-9.” Germany’s crack antiterrorist squad carried the innocuous name Grenz Schutz Gruppe, Border Protection Unit. But Unit Nine had made its bones with the Bader-Meinhoff gang, then sealed its reputation in a hostage rescue at Mogadishu that numbered no hostages among the casualties. “We’d have needed help from GSG-9 to assault any one of those places where Krüger was supposed to be holding Stefan. You surely alerted the unit to that possibility. Your German counterpart must have a team standing by in Berlin right now.”

  “Of course he does.” Stefan hobbled into the light and braced himself against the counter. His right leg was bandaged from mid-calf to mid-thigh, splinted to stiffness. “GSG-9 can mount an assault at a moment’s notice.”

  Holger gave him a tired glance. “You think the Germans will go in there because Hans has a hunch about Krüger?”

  “They will if you tell them to,” Stefan said.

  Holger shook his head. “You heard. There is no proof. None.” Frustration drove his pitch higher. And in that thin voice, I heard an echo of the struggle between the two sides of his nature, between the Father and the Major, between faith and intellect.

  I put my hand on his arm, the sweater rough against my fingertips. “Tell the Germans you have an informant. Tell them I say Krüger has a plan to blow up twelve planes and that right now he is hiding in that building.”

  Holger said, “But you don’t know—”

  I tightened my grip on his arm. “I’m wanted in connection with Global 500. You’ve got me, you’ve interrogated me and this is what I’ve given you.” I relaxed my hand. “It doesn’t matter if you believe it. Do this for me. If GSG-9 can catch Krüger, we can save the passengers on those twelve airliners. I don’t have any other way out of this mess. And what have you got to lose?”

  I watched his face. Something came into those attentive eyes, something softer. “You,” he said. “I will have to turn you over to the German police.”

  The words were final, the slamming of my prison door. And I realized that Holger had guessed where I was leading. Perhaps he, too, had considered the option of using me to activate GSG-9. Pondered it, then rejected it, because of the outcome for me. An outcome I hadn’t thought of. One I couldn’t face. What if I was wrong about Krüger? Maybe he wasn’t with the Libyans in their office. And if he wasn’t, then getting myself out of jail again would be an impossible task. I tried to speak, but couldn’t.

  Stefan did it for me. “Absolutely not.”

  Holger turned to him. “Once I tell them I have her, I will have no choice but to surrender her to them.”

  Stefan opened his mouth, then shut it again. The defeated expression on his face told me that Holger was right.

  How certain was I that Krüger had gone to the Libyans? It was no more than a guess. But in the end, all the best strategies begin with excellent guesswork. From somewhere in the back of my mind, I recalled another fragment from the poem that Erika had quoted to me: “. . . the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves, too.” Boldness. Genius. Power. Magic. Begin it now.

  “I’ll surrender later,” I said. “There’s no time for that now. They have to get Krüger before midnight.”

  “You’ll turn yourself in?” Holger asked.

  I moved my chin down, a halfhearted nod.

  Now his hand covered mine. “Your word.”

  Keep the faith. Show me you truly believe. Let your conviction carry us both forward. My throat was so tight I could only mumble. “My word.”

  He squeezed my hand, then stood and went to the phone.

  But that instant of soul-to-soul rapport didn’t change what I had to do. “We can’t wait for them,” I said to van Hoof.

  Van Hoof rose without speaking and went directly to the locker where he kept his supplies. The key grated against the padlock.

  Stefan lowered himself into the chair beside mine, the white tape across his nose in contrast with the reddish blue of his battered face. “Your handling of Holger was masterful,” he said.

  “Maybe.” I shrugged. “Here I am, offered up once again as the prize.”

  “You’ll be a minor trophy once Krüger is in custody.”

  “If they get him,” I said. “If he’s in there.”

  “The odds are good. Hans identified that target originally because it had connections to Reinhardt. And you explained it well. He’s exhausted his other options, pursuing me. We know his plan, his destination, everything. He’s in a box, no way out.”

  “And waiting for you to come.” I rubbed my hand over my scalp. “He wants that. He hopes you’ll turn up for the final showdown.”

  “I would. But I’m in no shape for hand-to-hand combat.” He reached across the table.

  I put my hands in my lap. I’d loved Stefan for a dozen years. Yet he’d kept crucial information secret from me. I’d paid dearly for my ignorance. Nothing would be right between us until I understood why he’d done that. Why he’d trusted me so little.

  His hand lay between us on the table, the gauze on his wrist white against the browned skin.

  I ignored it.

  He said, “You think I should have told you about Reinhardt?”

  “Hell, yes. Everything, right from the start.”

  He drew his hand back and reached for his cigarettes. “If you’d known he’d been in the Stasi, that he’d suddenly come back to life—what would you have done?”

  “Were you afraid I’d stop sleeping with you? You think the FBI would’ve liked me better if you were my former lover?”

  “You think I feared you’d kick me out of your bed? Far easier to live with that than what has happened now. I knew that when you learned the truth, you would end up where you are now. Caught in one scheme after another to capture Reinhardt.”

  “That’s the choice I wanted,” I said. “Before he did this to you and to me. You shouldn’t have kept it to yourself. Shouldn’t have tried to do it alone. Leaving me to sit on the sidelines of your war. Bearing the consequences. But w
ith no way to alter them.”

  He clicked the lighter, but didn’t put the flame to his cigarette. “Reinhardt should hear us now. He would be proud of what he has achieved.”

  28

  Then Holger was back. “The Germans will move immediately,” he said. “GSG-9 will have that building surrounded by eleven.” He answered my unspoken question. “Your surrender is set for eight o’clock tomorrow morning at police headquarters.”

  “Good,” I said, standing. “Are you ready?” I asked van Hoof.

  “All set,” he said.

  “You can’t go there,” Holger said.

  My down jacket was on top of my pile of clothes. I pulled it on and grabbed a set of keys from the counter. “Unit Nine is famous for catching terrorists. But not for bringing them in alive.” The only drawback to using GSG-9 was their preference for summary execution. I added, “I’m not going to carry a gun and join the assault group. But I have to be there. I have to make sure Reinhardt Krüger stays alive long enough to give us that information.”

  “And I will not allow her to do this without me,” van Hoof said. “Krüger has taken too much. Each time I think I have nothing more to lose, he surprises me.”

  Erika. I felt an answering pang.

  He cleared his throat. “I have to see this through.”

  “I need you there,” I told him. “But I’m running the show.”

  “Fine,” he said. “You lead. But let’s do it. We’re taking the Jetta?”

  I tossed him the keys. He picked up a loaded knapsack.

  Stefan turned his head, and I saw something pass between him and Holger. Then Holger said, “I will also go.”

  “Why not?” Van Hoof spoke from the doorway, his voice rough. “But remember, she’s in charge.” He knew as well as I did why Holger was tagging along. The Father-Major didn’t trust him. Neither did I. The man was a wild card. But I needed his expertise.