Time of Reckoning

by Walter Wager

  “After all these years, Merl?”

  “Get a picture and the plate number.”

  Merlin pulled the Ford off onto the shoulder of the road, and Cavaliere grabbed an expensive little camera from the glove compartment. He squeezed off two photos as the Taunus passed, then recited the license-plate number to Merlin.

  “Mind telling me what the hell you’re planning?” Cavaliere inquired when the Ford slid back into the traffic.

  “And they’re generally afraid to make a decision,” Merlin said firmly.

  “Those guys in the Taunus?”

  “No, the people who run big organizations—in all countries—on all planets.”

  Cavaliere’s brow was furrowed now. “What about those fellows in the Taunus, Merl?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll get to them.”

  He did—four minutes later. He stopped the Ford by a roadside phone, called the police and reported, in fine German, that three men had stolen a green 1975 Taunus. He gave the plate number, warned that the thieves were heading toward Bonn on this road.

  “Ought to do it,” he told the “lieutenant” briskly.

  It did.

  The Taunus resumed the tail position a few minutes later—briefly. Two police cars stopped it some eighteen kilometers out of Bonn, and Merlin guided the Ford into the old university-town-turned-capital without any escort.

  “Bonn, gateway to the Rhine Valley, Beethoven’s hometown,” Cavaliere said when they first saw the river. “Population one hundred and forty thousand. Including suburbs, three hundred thousand. Originally a Roman defense post named Castra Bonnensia, you know.”

  “You’ve been reading those damn guidebooks again!”

  Cavaliere smiled, almost shyly. “A man who stops learning starts dying,” he recited.

  “A man who stops watching his ass gets his head blown off,” Merlin answered. “Wake up, Angie. You don’t think we can trust the BND, do you? They certainly don’t trust us.”

  The man from the BND—West Germany’s energetic intelligence apparatus—was tall, nearly forty and had teeth so perfect that they were almost surely artificial. He’d picked the place for the meeting, the restaurant in the ultramodern Beethovenhalle. Merlin had done business with him two years earlier, so he recognized Herr Grad as soon as he approached.

  “Good afternoon, major,” the BND official said in mechanically casual tones.

  Gray.

  Everything about him was gray.

  His suit, his tie, his eyes—his whole manner—were gray and neutral. There was even a touch of premature gray in his hair, and the frames of his horn-rimmed glasses were—gray. His car was undoubtedly gray, and Merlin nursed the suspicion that if you visited Karl Grad’s home you’d find a wife of the same shade.

  “Herr Grad, Lieutenant Bonomi,” Merlin introduced.

  The amenities were important to Karl Grad. He was the kind of German who always shook hands and laughed politely at other people’s jokes. Grad never told jokes himself, although he knew scores. He was a serious man who could never be quite comfortable with someone as flip and unpredictable as Merlin. He did his job well, made very few mistakes—a classic example of the competent, ambitious bureaucrat. Much smarter than he let his superiors discern, he had risen inexorably in the BND because he didn’t offend or threaten anyone.

  “My pleasure, lieutenant. Sit down and enjoy the view of the Rhine. Would you join me in a glass of Schloss Johannis-berger?” He was as good a host as he was an executive.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Cavaliere answered.

  “Of course the view’s a bit better from the Alter Zoll further up,” Grad added truthfully.

  A good host? No, a perfect one.

  He ordered the wine, asked about their drive from Frankfurt.

  “A delightful and scenic journey,” Merlin replied archly, “with the special feature of being tailed by a green seventy-five Taunus. Friends of yours, Karl?”

  The BND official shook his head.

  “Didn’t think so. We’re guests in this country, and the BND would never be rude to guests, lieutenant. Would you like to talk about the weather, Karl? We’ve had terrific weather since we arrived. I’m going to tell all my friends about how swell the weather is in Germany in June.”

  “That’s kind of you, major,” Grad answered evenly. “Would you like something to eat? Some cold trout, perhaps?”

  “Now there’s hospitality. Trout would be dandy.”

  “Thank you very much,” Cavaliere added—wondering what in hell Merlin was up to in this elliptical conversation. The talk dawdled on until the wine and food arrived. Grad appeared to be in no hurry to bring up the subject of the list, didn’t mention it at all during the lunch.

  “Thanks for suggesting the trout,” Merlin said as he put down his fork and reached for his wineglass. “The wine was good too, Karl.”

  “Germany has many excellent wines. If you’d like to try—”

  Merlin gestured grandly, and negatively. “No, thanks. I think I’ll try the list—if you don’t mind.”

  Herr Grad blinked, reached inside his jacket—giving them the briefest glimpse of a holstered small-caliber automatic—and drew out a plain white envelope.

  “There are one hundred and four names,” he said noncommittally. Then he put the envelope down on the table.

  “And addresses?”

  “As your local representative requested, major. Your theory is quite interesting.”

  Merlin scooped up the envelope with one hand, used the other to pour the last of the Schloss Johannisberger.

  “It’s more than a theory, Karl. Take it seriously.”

  Grad applied his starched linen napkin to his lips. “We’ve instructed all the prisons as you asked, major,” he assured.

  “And the military bases?”

  The BND official nodded. “You’re confident that these people will attempt a raid for explosives?”

  Merlin swilled down the wine. “I’m betting on it,” he said.

  Some one hundred seconds later—at 2:05 P.M., to be precise—a very well-dressed German businessman named Alfred Balser glanced at his wristwatch. It was a gold Rolex, of course. The boardroom of the Chemical Industry Association was buzzing with the conversations of nearly a score of very well-dressed German businessmen—shrewd, successful men whose positions in the community required gold Rolexes and large Mercedes and a thorough knowledge of international trade, currency fluctuation and senior political figures. They were powerful men, top executives in the biggest chemical combines in prosperous West Germany. None of these gendemen had ever been seduced by the Nazi ideology, for they’d always given their allegiance to the deutschmark.

  Balser looked down at Frankfurt nine stories below, then across to the handsome oak door. The lunch had been splendid and the brandy first-class, but where was Heinrich?

  “I hope the deal’s as good as you say, Alfred,” one of the others said jovially.

  “Heinrich was very pleased. He’ll tell you all about it,” Balser replied.

  The negotiations with the Soviets had been handled brilliantly, which was no surprise since Heinrich Hessicher had considerable experience in such matters. He was clever, and he was reliable. That’s why Balser couldn’t understand why he was late.

  “He’s in the Gents’, Alfred. I saw him go in about five minutes ago,” volunteered Von Brunnen.

  They smoked and chatted, about the usual things—money, politics, their vacation homes on the Costa del Sol and the latest sex scandal.

  Where the hell was Heinrich?

  After a few classic scatological jests about toilets and body functions, Balser grew impatient and just a little uneasy. He tried not to hurry as he left the boardroom, but once he was outside he walked swiftly to the lavatory. One booth was closed, and he recognized the expensive Italian shoes below the door immediately.

  “Heinrich?”

  There was no answer.

  “You all right, Heinrich?”

&n
bsp; Silence.

  “Heinrich? Something wrong?”

  No reply.

  Balser hesitated, pulled open the door.

  There was Heinrich Hessicher, seated on the toilet with his pants down—and a hole just over his nose. It was dripping blood. In the horror of the moment, Alfred Balser didn’t notice the large sheet of paper on the floor. The police did when they arrived sixteen minutes later, and they recognized the insignia of the Lietzen-Stoller group before they read the scrawled manifesto.

  This was a “warning” from “the people” that no deals with the “Moscow fascists” would be “tolerated.” The traditional “Death to the Exploiters and Imperialists!” concluded the note, which a police laboratory technician carefully placed in a large envelope so that it could be checked for fingerprints and other clues. The 4 P.M. news broadcast announced that a building guard had identified Lietzen’s photo as that of a maintenance man who’d arrived in coveralls to fix a leak.

  Many of those who heard this report were shocked.

  At least two—in the uniforms of U.S. Army officers—were angered.

  One man took the news with total indifference. The terrorists were as remote and unreal to Ernest Beller as life forms on some distant planet. The whole news broadcast constituted a minor annoyance, an intrusion into the music he was enjoying. Dr. Beller had much more important things on his mind. He was on his way to Düsseldorf, the business center of the heavily industrialized Ruhr. The two tall buildings on the horizon said it clearly—the three “slabs” of the twenty-six-story Thyssen headquarters put up in ’57 and the twenty-three-floor aluminum-and-glass ode to the Mannesman steel group. Unaware that Teletypes had already clicked out warnings to every prison in West Germany housing Nazis who’d committed “crimes against humanity,” he pointed the gray BMW toward the skyscrapers silhouetted ahead and thought about Monitz. Thinking about Monitz was always particularly disturbing, for his crimes touched a special nerve.

  He’d slaughtered children.

  That had been his job at the camp in Poland.

  The Israeli teams that had tracked down Eichmann and others had been hunting Monitz in thirty countries, but the monster had been lucky. A journalist visiting a monastery in Austria had recognized him in 1959, so Monitz got twenty-five years instead of a burst from an Uzi or a letter bomb like the one that took out the “respectable businessman” in Bremen a year later.

  Perhaps it was because of the fury that choked him when he thought about Monitz, whom he would kill in two hours and five minutes. Or maybe it was due to the “upper” that the twenty-three-year-old driver of the red Toyota had popped an hour earlier.

  Whatever it was, Beller was less than half a kilometer inside the city limits when he suddenly saw the red car hurtling at him. He tried to twist the wheel and slam on the brakes, but the Toyota was moving too fast. It rammed into the left side of the BMW, smashing the rear door and back fender. Both vehicles spun under the impact, and the BMW was hit again by a green panel truck. That was the last thing the doctor knew before everything went black.

  “Are you all right?”

  He opened his eyes, felt nauseated.

  “Are you all right, mein herr?”

  The man speaking through the window was a police officer. After a few moments Beller’s eyes focused properly and he managed to speak.

  “I—think so.”

  The policeman helped him out, and Ernest Beller, still groggy, leaned against his vehicle. It was badly dented, but the damage didn’t seem nearly as serious as it might have been. The expensive BMW was a sturdy machine.

  “What happened?” he wondered aloud.

  The officer pointed to the red Japanese sedan, knocked over on its side with its whole front smashed. The driver was being laid on a stretcher by two ambulance attendants. “That’s what happened,” the policeman said. “Not blaming you. We’ll figure out who’s responsible at the station.”

  “Station?” Beller asked stupidly.

  “The police station, mein herr. You’ll have to come with me.”

  25

  Every minute counted.

  Every second the danger grew.

  Beller knew that he was in jeopardy from the moment the policeman spoke. Not only was there the risk that some clever or lucky officer might find some flaw in his story—some minute error in his papers—but there were all the unpredictable problems that might arise if he arrived at the prison late. The German authorities were methodical, orderly and disciplined. As long as everything went as expected—as it was supposed to—they’d go along. If anything broke that neat pattern, they’d be uneasy—perhaps suspicious.

  That was the bigger danger.

  Beller was due at the prison at a quarter to two. It was 12:25 by the time they reached the station, where he was given a cup of mediocre instant coffee and the bump on his forehead was treated again with a stinging antiseptic that reminded him of the broken skin. The sergeant insisted on giving him a sterile German bandage like a Band-Aid before the questioning began. The avenger thought quickly about the chances of some tiny flaw in his forged papers, realized that there was but one sure and safe way to cope.

  He told them that he was Dr. Ernest Beller, showed his U.S. passport and the documents identifying him as a civil servant-physician on the staff of the medical examiner of New York City. There was nothing wrong with these papers, he reasoned, so they had to work.

  They did.

  The police asked a lot of questions, but very courteously. They clearly respected a fellow public employee, and they addressed “Herr Doktor” with the deference that his professional position demanded. The long tradition of deference to all the many “Herr Doktors”—the hordes of physicians and dentists and lawyers and chemists and engineers and other solid briefcase carriers with vests—affected the tone of the entire examination, but not the questions themselves.

  There were many questions, endless questions, all with polite “pleases” and then more questions. There were questions about when he entered the Federal Republic and others about his New York driver’s license, and a lot more about the events “immediately preceding the collision.”

  “It’s all routine procedure, Herr Doktor,” the sharp-eyed sergeant said at least nine times. He went over each detail again and again and again. He glanced off toward the door to the rear, and Beller sensed that this policeman was stalling.

  These efficient Germans were up to something.

  He had to make his move—away.

  “I want to call the nearest U.S. consul,” he said abruptly.

  “But you were born in Germany.”

  Delaying tactics, beyond doubt.

  “I insist on my right to speak to the U.S. consul,” Beller announced in a slightly louder voice.

  “Herr Doktor, bitte.”

  “Is this a democracy, or still a fascist state?” the pathological pathologist thundered. “You think you can still abuse Jews?”

  The sergeant winced. Gott, this high-strung foreigner would go screaming to the U.S. papers and television networks—all riddled with people who still held grudges against Germany—and the mayor and the other politicians would go crazy. A young policeman walked in, whispered something.

  “Herr Doktor, be calm.”

  “My senator in Washington will hear about these Nazi tactics!”

  Nazi tactics?

  “Doktor, we’ve just had the results of the tests. The driver of the other vehicle was under the influence of an artificial stimulant—a powerful pill. You understand? No way you can be responsible.”

  Beller’s glare was pure hate, 180 proof. “Can I leave this prison?”

  There were heaps of apologies, overlapping each other like mounds of leaves. A police car was provided to drive herr doktor to where he could rent a new vehicle, a tan VW Dasher in which he might complete his journey. As Beller drove off, he was disturbed by two things. He was behind schedule, and he was troubled by a senseless feeling that he was being tracked. He check
ed many times during the next twenty minutes and saw no pursuer, and finally arrived at the impressively modern “penal institution”—fifty-eight minutes late.

  “We’ve been waiting for you.”

  Something in the warden’s tone—or was it the look in his eyes?—suggested sudden jeopardy, and Beller’s hand moved toward the bomb under his jacket. The Special Forces demolition experts had taught him well. If these guards moved to seize him, they’d all go with him. The warden glanced again at the letter identifying Beller as a BND agent on official business—Monitz business.

  “Why Monitz?”

  It sounded like an accusation.

  “Warden Wankel, the BND is the security agency for the nation. We do not discuss classified projects with prison personnel.”

  “I wasn’t prying. It was just—after all these years…I’ll take you up myself.”

  While they were speaking, the warning message from Bonn was delivered to Wankel’s secretary. She started to open it, but then the phone rang and when her conversation with Willi ended she spent a good two minutes adjusting her bra straps to make certain they stuck out and up— just right. Willi was so old-fashioned, but a dear. There, they were perfect. She opened the envelope, scanned the message form and stood up quickly.

  Then she ran.

  Flopping breasts, high heels and all, she ran.

  Above, Wankel nodded professionally as a guard opened the metal door to the tier of cells and explained that there were relatively few such barriers on this floor, which held the model prisoners.

  “Monitz is a model prisoner?”

  “In more ways than one. You see—”

  Then they heard the clatter of her high heels.

  “Warden—this may be important!” she gasped.

  Wankel gestured to the guard captain to open the cell facing them, and simultaneously took the message form from her.

  “Hold it!”

  The door was already three inches open.

  “I’m afraid you can’t see Monitz. No one can. This just arrived from Bonn,” Wankel announced officiously. He thrust the page at Beller.

  “Of course,” the assassin improvised quickly. “Herr Wankel, that’s why I’m here. No, not to kill Monitz,” he chuckled. As patronizing chuckles go, it was Grade A.