Time of Reckoning

by Walter Wager

  He would have to keep that in mind.

  Suddenly he was there, facing the strange magnet that had drawn him to this place. It wasn’t U-shaped at all, but formed in the outline of a six-pointed star. The Jewish symbol over the door of this nineteenth-century building marked it as a synagogue, the only one left in this city of more than half a million. There had been several in Nürnberg before the “non-Aryan” population was slaughtered in the Holocaust. Now there were a few hundred Jews instead of many thousands, and these survivors needed but one place of worship.

  Beller heard the chanting, froze. The sounds of the ancient song drifting from an open window paralyzed him.

  It didn’t make any sense. Ernest Beller had no religious education, hadn’t even visited synagogues except for some fifteen or sixteen weddings and funerals. Still, these five-thousand-year-old prayers seized him. Dr. Ernest Beller, who was Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard and ranked in the top quarter of his class at Columbia’s medical school, was a prisoner of a god whose very language was a mystery to him.

  Now he heard the high voice of a young boy, and he guessed that there might be a bar mitzvah service in progress. Beller had never made this ritual passage to manhood, hadn’t thought about it seriously until his visit to Gillenstein. This prayer of affirmation—it had to be that—held him hypnotically, touching something that the medical scientist hadn’t known existed. Only vaguely aware of what he was doing, Dr. Ernest Beller walked to the temple and opened the door.

  The sight dazed him.

  There were only thirty or forty people in the chamber. The walls were almost bare, and there were none of the trappings of a wealthy, healthy congregation. These were the survivors, the ones who had endured. These were the stubborn ones, who wouldn’t go and wouldn’t die—yet. Most of them were in their fifties or sixties, but Beller hardly noticed them. His eyes locked on the splendor of the Torah, and the thirteen-year-old boy in silken prayer robe nearby.

  Shaken by a complex torrent of emotions that had nothing to do with any book he’d ever read or course he’d ever taken, Beller stared helplessly. It was, somehow, awesome. It was also frightening, this powerful mystery for which no one had prepared him. He would surely reason all this out sensibly in due course, but he wasn’t ready to cope with this now. Dr. Beller looked at this scene he’d never forget, nodded and closed the door.

  Too much.

  He walked away with dry lips, eying the storefronts for a bar where he could buy a stein—perhaps two or three—of cool beer. Even after the third glass he couldn’t understand why he had reacted so strangely, why these trappings and ceremonies and chants should move him. Dr. Ernest Beller didn’t believe in these things, and he didn’t believe in “racial memory” either. Besides, the Jews weren’t a race; it was the Nazis who’d said they were. These questions bothered him all of Saturday afternoon.

  The man who arrived at Schloss Gillenstein at 11:45 the next morning was a lot more calm. He wore the robes of a Catholic priest, but his serenity wasn’t that of a human who knows that he has found the true faith. His was the peace of an executioner who has watched his main adversary drive away. Beller waited a few minutes after the warden’s car disappeared from sight, then presented himself at the prison gate.

  The guard was embarrassed. No, this was not the time to visit an inmate.

  The cleric was understanding but insistent.

  The captain was summoned, and he apologized for the “situation.” Visiting hours began at 2 P.M., and whom did the good father wish to see? Falkenhausen? Impossible. He’d broken the rules. The captain wasn’t going to describe the bloody assault, for that might offend the sensibilities of a man of the cloth. These clerics were so spiritual, so unworldly.

  The priest was undiscouraged. He’d come a long way at the request of the prisoner’s ailing sister, a woman who might soon be “joining her maker.” He’d given his word. He was on his way to a nearby monastery, and had little time. Wasn’t the captain a good Christian? Surely the warden was, for the father at Saint Lorenz in the town had mentioned his piety.

  “Ten minutes,” yielded the uneasy captain.

  “God will bless you, my son,” pledged the man wearing the large wooden cross.

  Beller glanced down at the moat for two or three seconds before he entered the old castle. Narrow corridors, stone floors and walls—all the standard features of medieval fort-homes. Falkenhausen was in a cell on the fourth floor in a tower. That suited the plan perfectly.

  “Who are you?” Falkenhausen asked warily.

  “The father brings word from your sister.”

  “What sister?”

  “And your nephew, Oskar,” Beller added swiftly.

  The vicious old man’s eyes gleamed in recognition.

  Dirlewanger hadn’t forgotten.

  “Please come in, father.”

  Perhaps Falkenhausen wasn’t a complete psychopath after all, the captain thought. He’d never heard him say “please” during these many years. In fact, the senior guard had half-expected the beast to insult—maybe even assault—the man of God. Was it possible that there was still some shred of decency in this savage that could be redeemed?

  Could he dare to leave them alone?

  “Please sit down, father,” Falkenhausen invited.

  The animal sounded almost civilized—for the moment.

  I’ll knock on the door in ten minutes, captain,” Beller said.

  “Ten minutes—no more.”

  Captain Mecke hesitated. If something—anything—went wrong…if this violent prisoner attacked the priest, the warden would surely hold him, not Falkenhausen, responsible.

  “I’m not certain that—”

  “It’ll be all right.”

  Shit, Mecke thought. These priests thought that everyone was a goddam angel. Mecke was a Protestant, and he wasn’t about to have his career ruined because some simple-minded son of Rome believed all men were good at heart.

  “You have my word,” Falkenhausen said.

  He sounded normal enough. The captain shrugged, left the cell.

  “I bring greetings from your friends, your old friends,” Beller began.

  “I haven’t heard from them in a long time. I’m not complaining, mind you, but it’s been a terribly long time.”

  Beller nodded benignly.

  “They have not forgotten you, my son. Your comrades have been busy with important new work.”

  Was the man really a priest? Falkenhausen didn’t dare ask. The S.S. didn’t question. The solemn oath of the S.S. was loyalty and obedience.

  “Oskar?” The name leaped from his lips before Falkenhausen could stop it.

  “Not far away. He needs you—now.”

  Falkenhausen almost shouted with joy. It was all happening, just as he’d dreamed. “I’m ready,” he declared as he snapped to attention.

  “Of course. Your friends have been watching and waiting for a long time. Now it is time for you to join them. Nothing can stop you.”

  It was wonderful. Nothing could stop him, just like the old days.

  “I see that the small window up there has only one bar. Here is a specially hardened file,” Beller said as he reached under his robe to draw it from the sheath taped to his right leg. “When the others sleep, you are to file through. You must be done by three in the morning. Is that clear?”

  He was no priest. There was a toughness in his voice that was far from clerical.

  “And then?”

  The visitor smiled, pulled up his cassock to expose a long length of cord wrapped around his waist.

  “This is nylon rope, light but strong. It measures ninety feet. We’ll be waiting with a car.”

  “Oskar?”

  “There’s no time for questions, colonel. Here’s the rope. Hide it in your bedclothes till you need it.”

  Then Beller banged on the metal-studded door, and twenty-five minutes later he was back in his British-journalist clothes, checking out of the hotel. It was too bad that he co
uldn’t wait around to make certain, but that would be too risky. The church bells were ringing as he guided the BMW onto the autobahn, and when he looked back at the city the view resembled one of those quaint scenes on picture postcards. It was easy to see why so many tourists found Nürnberg charming.

  Shortly before 8 A.M. the next morning, the new shift of guards arrived at Schloss Gillenstein. One of them was Kraus, and he was the first to notice the short length of white rope—perhaps fifteen or twenty feet—hanging from the tower window. He looked down quite automatically, saw the body floating face down in the moat. Even without a view of the features, Rolf Kraus recognized the corpse.

  Sigmund Falkenhausen.

  The Nazi criminal was dead, and one tiny bit of the stain on the honor of German warriors was just a little dimmer.

  20

  “I don’t think it’s very funny,” Duslov said belligerently as Merlin entered the men’s room, “and you can tell your people that.”

  What the hell was he talking about?

  “Would you mind if I took a leak?” Merlin fenced as he walked to the urinal.

  “I suspect that you may be personally responsible for this provocation,” the KGB agent announced angrily.

  Merlin shook his head, unzipped his trousers and began to dispose of some of the Moselle he’d been drinking. After imbibing half a bottle of excellent Piesporter, he was in no mood to wrangle, but there was probably no way to avoid it.

  “What provocation?” he asked reluctantly.

  “Don’t tell me that naming one of your ear-splitting rock groups KGB was an accident. I’m no child.”

  No, he wasn’t. Duslov was one of a large number of dirty-minded middle-aged men. Merlin found no comfort in the fact that the Soviets were just as paranoid as his own countrymen. It wouldn’t help to point out that the “B” in KGB was a talented guitarist-composer named Mike Bloomfield, or that the group had been named by some puckish record company executive. There was nothing you could do about paranoids except vote against their reelection and hope your brother didn’t marry one. Merlin zipped up his pants, strode to the basin to wash his hands.

  “I thought you called this meeting to talk business, Andrei.”

  “I did. I’m keeping my part of the bargain. I’m behaving correctly.”

  Merlin reached for the soap. “Terrific. Do I get three guesses?”

  “I have heard that these people—”

  “What goddam people, comrade?”

  To call Duslov’s smile patronizing would be an absurd understatement.

  “The Martians—a rumor about their next operation. Their last was quite a success, wasn’t it?”

  Merlin rinsed his hands, tore off two paper towels. “A smash. Now what’s this about their next number?” The American’s face showed no trace of the elation within him.

  “They are planning a big bang,” Duslov confided. “Explosives, I presume. Those precise words were used. ‘A big bang.’”

  Merlin balled up the towels, flipped them accurately into the open bin. “Thanks a heap, comrade. Got to admit I’m impressed by your fast service, Andrei… Mind if I ask one question?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Do we have to meet in weird places like this?”

  The Russian grunted, turned to leave. “Remember what I said,” he ordered. “Jokes about the KGB are hardly conducive to good relations. This sort of behavior isn’t my idea of detente.”

  “Detente in the crapper?”

  At that moment a dentist named Pfalzheimer from Ulm—a lovely town—walked in, and Andrei Duslov left. Merlin guessed that Dr. Pfalzheimer was some kind of a germ nut because he washed his hands first, but the CIA man’s attention turned to Freddy Cassel as soon as he left the lavatory. She was clearly the prettiest woman in this Funkturm Restaurant, even lovelier than the panoramic night view of Berlin that sprawled beneath this exotic dining place in the radio tower, high over the fairground For a few seconds she was all he saw, and he smiled as he returned to their table.

  “She says he had a meeting with Duslov,” Harper told the deputy director, nineteen hours and twenty-three minutes later.

  Time flies—west to Langley.

  “Andrei Duslov,” Parks chimed in unnecessarily.

  “Son of a bitch?” asked the deputy director.

  “Only man I know whose mother wears a flea collar,” Harper answered.

  The deputy director had barely learned to cope with the righteous assassins and the hostile press, and he wasn’t about to endure stand-up comics. Maybe Congress was correct. Perhaps the whole goddam place was turning into some sort of existential nut house.

  “He was seen with Duslov before,” Parks said.

  “What do you think, Bill?”

  Harper smiled enigmatically at the deputy director, hoping to impress him with his cool. That was the way you got salary increases, and Harper could use an extra $3500 a year. “Think he’s doing his number—the one we sent him to do, John.”

  “Metaphor?”

  “Metaphor—terrible situation. Rotten name, too. They’ll probably tag the next damn mission Dangling Participle. Can’t you say something to that clown who picks the code names?”

  “His uncle’s a senator. Bill, why is Merlin playing games with the Sovs?”

  Cool.

  Harper wasn’t going to admit that he had no idea, that he didn’t understand Merlin any better than anyone else did.

  “He’s doing it his way, John. All the other ways didn’t work, remember. Three whole networks, and it isn’t over yet.”

  The deputy director frowned unhappily. “Bill, you don’t think our lady in Berlin knows about Metaphor?”

  “Metaphor? She doesn’t even know about Crash Dive!”

  Harper misinterpreted the deputy director’s gloomy look. Smith wasn’t afraid. He was dismayed. He stood up, stepped to the window and stared out for ten or twelve seconds.

  “Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises?” he quoted. “Thoreau. You’ve read Thoreau, Bill.”

  Harper nodded, but it was a lie.

  He’d never, read a word of Thoreau, not one.

  21

  The man who might be “Alexander” attacked the moment that Merlin entered the luggage store.

  Bam!

  Just like that.

  “Sixteen and a half marks!” he shouted.

  Maybe it was the dye in the leather that produced this hysteria. But whatever it was, Merlin was in no mood to sympathize.

  “You owe the tax! Sixteen and a half marks, mein herr!” the madman insisted.

  Could Marx be right? Was it really inevitable that rampant capitalism would lead to this?

  “I’ve come to use the phone,” Merlin said in calm and reasonable tones.

  “Not until you pay the tax!”

  Merlin lit a cigar, blew out a perfect smoke ring. “Of course,” he agreed. “By the way, do you know a good orthopedic surgeon?”

  The man behind the counter hesitated warily. “Why do you ask?”

  Merlin put away his silver lighter. “Because after I give you the goddam sixteen and a half marks I’m going to break off your arms and beat your face in with them.”

  “I’m not afraid of thugs.”

  The American nodded, blew another smoke ring. “Whoever said I’m a thug? You don’t have to be afraid of me, friend. I’m no thug. I’m an assassin.”

  Merlin flipped open his jacket to show the .357 Magnum, and the German held onto the counter to avoid falling. He wasn’t afraid, but he could barely avoid soiling his trousers.

  Merlin placed the money on the glass counter, smiled. “Should have sent you a check last week,” he said pleasantly. “Don’t worry. I rarely kill people on Tuesdays, except in months ending in R.”

  “This is June.”

  “So you can stop sweating. Now I’d like to ask you for a favor. I’ve got to talk to Bonn on a secure line, and—for reasons of my own—I’d like
to use yours.”

  “I’m not asking any questions,” assured “Alexander.”

  He was intensely curious as to why the American wasn’t using the phone at the “audiovisual” unit at the cultural center, but he sensed that it might be unhealthy to inquire. He’d seen many operatives pass through this shop, and something in his lower intestines told him that this man was one of those who killed. He handed Merlin a key.

  “It’s in the back room. Lower left drawer of the desk.”

  Merlin put down a fifty-mark note.

  “I hope this will cover the charges—and the tax.”

  No doubt about it. He was just the sort who would break off your arms and smash in your face with them.

  And then he’d do worse.

  “That’s too much, mein herr. You’re too generous.”

  “My only weakness.”

  Merlin went to the back room, locked the door and opened the drawer. Sitting on the edge of the desk, he dialed the number of the CIA “country central” in the German capital.

  “Atlas,” a woman said.

  “Mr. Herbert Stoltz,” Merlin recited.

  “Traffic?”

  “No, mail room.”

  Challenge, sign and countersign—all correct.

  “Mail room.”

  “This is Merlin. What have you got for me?”

  At that very moment, Ernst Beller was back at work.

  Stuttgart: the modern and well-equipped Gablinghofen Women’s Prison. The institution had been named after Dr. Ingeborg Gablinghofen, noted social psychologist who’d played a major role in progressive penology and insisted “There’s no such thing as a bad woman”—right up to the moment that her twin granddaughters set her on fire. Gablinghofen had the third best women’s basketball team in the country, and a wonderful contemporary-arts program. A portly police inspector from Bonn—who had a B.A. from Harvard and memories that made him homicidal—was following Matron Krondorf down a second-floor corridor.