Time of Reckoning

by Walter Wager

Even stretching charitably, no one could call Blue Bernard a gentleman. He’d asked her several times why she wanted to see Herr Wasserman, but she’d lied adroitly, hinting at lust as her motive.

  “And he believed me.”

  “So do I,” Merlin said and he kissed her hand, rather gallantly, before he made his escape.

  When he got to Amerika Haus, Lomas was seated at the station officer’s desk.

  “They called. They want to make the exchange at five o’clock, day after tomorrow, on the edge of the Grunwald Forest.”

  “And what do you want, George?”

  “I want to help you get her back, Merl.”

  Lomas wanted to help and Grad wanted to help and dear Lotte was more than willing to help—among other things.

  “You do intend to make the swap, don’t you?” Lomas asked cautiously.

  Merlin’s answer was somewhat oblique. “George,” he said, “I need six TV cameras, and a remote truck—the land directors use on location. Can you help me with that?”

  “What?”

  “And a helicopter—an army chopper equipped for photo recon—and a baby carriage.”

  It sounded like something out of a Woody Allen movie.

  “Whatever it is, can I watch?” Lomas demanded sarcastically.

  Merlin shook his head, explained the scheme.

  “Have I ever liked any of your plans?” Lomas asked after he’d heard it all.

  “Never.”

  “I like this one. Merlin, it’s daring and it’s—creative. Very—well, contemporary. A dynamite idea.”

  “ ’Preciate that, George.”

  “Dy-no-mite. Of course I knew from the start you had something up your sleeve. You wouldn’t need all those shooters and the Band if you intended to pay. Okay, I’ll gamble with you. I’ll keep my part of the bargain. How about yours?”

  Merlin put his right index finger to his lips. “No names,” he instructed.

  “We’ve just swept the whole place for bugs, Merl.”

  “Humor me.”

  Lomas took a pad, wrote one word.

  Victor.

  Merlin borrowed the ballpoint, wrote under the name.

  Jeff Anderson.

  Lomas winced. This was a personal blow, for Anderson was one of his own people.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely,” Merlin answered as he tore the top four pages from the pad. He ripped them into strips, heaped them in a large ashtray and set them ablaze. Through the curl of smoke, Merlin could see the rapid eye movements that said Lomas was thinking out all the details of the many things he had to do. Identifying Victor’s contacts, spotting his lines of communication, checking and digging very quietly to ascertain how and when and why Anderson “turned”—or was this Anderson at all? Those items alone would involve thousands of hours of work. This was the sort of thing George Lomas did well, and when the final report was written—perhaps in two or three years—it would be an account of victory for the agency’s internal-security branch.

  “How did you figure—”

  “Animal intuition,” Merlin interrupted.

  Lomas reached forward, carefully destroyed the charred flakes in the ashtray. “I’ll get that stuff for you,” he promised.

  Merlin turned to leave.

  The betrayal of American operatives in East Germany was over, and now the United States would start picking off their agents.

  “Good job, Merlin… I guess I never said that before. Good job.”

  “Thanks.”

  Merlin walked out, and Lomas called in an aide to order the strange equipment that the daring plan required. If it worked, the West Germans would be outraged, and the director would like that.

  34

  In the small hours of the night while most of Berlin slept, Merlin and Freddy Cassel celebrated their bodies in the large bed in her apartment. Only a few miles away men were establishing a command post in a flat not quite directly across the street from the building where the terrorists had been seen. Radios, laser-beam listening devices and other expensive new surveillance gear were installed and tested. The telephone lines to the military hospital, the house where the kidnappers were and—just to play it safe—the brothel were all tapped. Overhead in the blackness, a photo-recon helicopter droned almost inaudibly as its crew shot scores of infrared pictures of the target area.

  The alarm clock went off at 7:50 and Freddy Cassel sat up in bed, and Merlin said “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t get out of the sack. I want to talk to you.”

  “We ‘talked’ twice last night,” she reminded him.

  “I really mean talk. This is very serious.”

  “I’ve got to get to work.”

  “Call in and say you’re sick. It’s important.”

  She looked at him curiously, wondering whether he finally trusted her enough to discuss his secret mission. It would be a terrific feather in her cap. On the verge of success, she tensed with the awareness that she had to be extra careful.

  “Frank, what’s this all about?”

  She exposed a bit of one breast to emphasize her sincerity. Nice touch, Merlin thought.

  “It’s about the woman who was kidnapped. We want to get her back.”

  “Can I help?”

  Welcome to the club.

  Merlin nodded, looked at her as if he were trying to make a difficult decision.

  “What have you got to do with this, Frank?” She shifted, giving him a free flash of the other mammary.

  “Freddy, I’m not a private detective. I work for the U.S. government, and we need your help.”

  “The government?”

  “Yes, it’s all secret. We’re supposed to deliver the ransom and pick up the woman tomorrow, and I want you to help check out the exchange point first. They’re less likely to notice a woman.”

  “Will—will it be dangerous?” She didn’t overdo the widened eyes, the touch of tremor in her voice.

  “Not for a professional like you, honey.”

  “What?”

  “Cut the crap,” Merlin instructed as he pulled an envelope from the inner pocket of his jacket on the nearby chair.

  “Frank!” she protested.

  No, “innocence” wasn’t her best number.

  He dropped the envelope on her lap. “I think you’re better at the screwing. What I want to know is whether you’re just a bed commando, or are you a fully trained agent?”

  “You’re crazy!”

  “Check the pictures, honey.”

  She opened the envelope, found a dozen excellent pictures Cavaliere had taken of her with two of her contacts. One of them was Grad.

  “You’ve been monitoring our office at Amerika Haus for BND for nearly two years, Freddy, but that’s standard stuff. Can you shoot as well as you screw?”

  “Better. You didn’t say anything about shooting.”

  “I will. Make some coffee, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  Merlin explained when and where the exchange would be made, and Freddy Cassel swore she’d tell no one. She didn’t have to. Her BND colleagues listening in the apartment below smiled at the naїveté of the American, and they promptly relayed the schedule for the ransom payment to Grad, who called for maps of the woods as he began planning to saturate the entire sector with German agents. Credit for the capture of the terrorists would help the BND in next month’s budget hearings, and it wouldn’t hurt Karl Grad’s career either.

  Just because nine different gangs of terrorists have danced around West Germany as if it were a hotel ballroom doesn’t mean that the BND isn’t good. It’s a lot better than many intelligence outfits, but—as Joe E. Brown said in the final scene of Some Like It Hot— nobody’s perfect. So the BND missed a few things now and then, and among those was the arrival of the TV cameras and the “remote” truck.

  While Grad was spending his afternoon with maps of the payoff zone, Angelo Cavaliere was busy with other charts of the streets nea
r the brothel. Then he actually walked the area to confirm his ideas. After that he went over the blowups of the infrared photos again.

  Merlin’s plan was set. All it needed was fine tuning. If no one meddled, it was going to work. The trick was to keep people—the wrong people—from meddling, and to make sure that the right people knew precisely what to do. At 5 P.M. Merlin phoned Blue Bernard to say that he’d need those machine gunners at 3:30 the next day.

  “Shall I pick them up or do you deliver?”

  “For an old friend, we deliver. They’ll be outside the Hilton in a black sedan.”

  “A black sedan?” Merlin wondered.

  “I’m a traditionalist,” Blue Bernard confessed.

  “Someone has to maintain the standards.”

  Bernard thanked him for the compliment, and forty-five seconds later telephoned Duslov to report that the Americans were about to make their move. The KGB officer sat silent for an hour, doodling as he wondered why Merlin would need hired hoodlums when he could draw upon the substantial CIA and—probably—BND units in the area. The ransoming of the woman was probably involved, but it didn’t make sense.

  Something funny was going on.

  That was no surprise.

  Something funny was always going on when that damned Merlin was in the game.

  The only thing Duslov could do was send a carload of men to follow Merlin from the Hilton rendezvous—and recheck the situation at the U.S. military hospital. Thus far all the signs indicated that no one suspected Victor, but there could be something funny there too. Why couldn’t Merlin do things like anyone else? Even his deviousness was irrational and different, odd stunts and strange surprises that—what was the expression?—yes…came from left field. Merlin’s tricks came from out of left field, as the Amerikanski would say.

  Duslov merely jostled his food at dinner, too fretful to ingest more than fragments. Merlin ate like that proverbial horse—with Freddy Cassel at his side. She’d been near him, within his sight, since they got out of bed that morning. She realized he wasn’t taking any chances that she might phone Grad, and she played along with his illusion that his secret was safe. She even offered to help again.

  “You really want me to shoot tomorrow?” she asked as they left the restaurant at ten o’clock.

  “It might be necessary.”

  “Then get me a weapon.”

  “Name your weapon, lady,” he invited amiably.

  “Shotgun.”

  “Holy shit!” someone said behind them.

  “This is—what the hell are we calling you this week?” Merlin asked the man who stepped out of the dark doorway.

  “Bonomi,” Cavaliere said.

  “Lieutenant John Bonomi,” Merlin corrected.

  “He’s out of uniform.”

  “You’ve got to do something about that, John,” Merlin joked.

  “Why did you say ‘holy shit,’ John?” she asked.

  “I always do when I meet ladies who work shotguns,” Cavaliere snapped testily.

  “What else does he do?” the German woman asked.

  “He drives. Let’s go.”

  The Band and the team of sharpshooters were waiting when they entered the U.S. Army theater, and a number of the men eyed Freddy Cassel approvingly. A few of them measured her, and a couple lusted as simple folk often do. None of this bothered the practical fraulein, who had often found the admiration of males useful—sometimes even fun.

  “Only want to run this two or three times, so pay attention,” Merlin sang out briskly.

  He looked around, began to count. “Everybody here?” he asked.

  “Godfather’s busy, Merl, but he’s sending you a present,” Roosevelt Allison announced.

  Fraulein Cassel filed away the name “Merl,” smiled at the black man.

  “Present?” Merlin asked.

  “Little Lou—for the carriage.”

  Now Merlin smiled, and he introduced the woman to his associates. “Freddy Cassel—she’s with our good West German friends, the BND…sharp chick…been casing our Berlin station for nearly two years.”

  “Wooo-wee!”

  That was Country Binks, doing his redneck thing.

  “Godfather won’t like that,” Allison predicted.

  Something in the tone of the conversation was starting to bother her. Let them be rude. She’d have the last laugh.

  “Freddy, I’d introduce you to those quiet fellows in the back,” Merlin ambled on, “but I don’t know them too well. They’re shooters, fine shooters. The noisy crowd up front is—let’s see…Ed…Luther…Rosie…Country…Don…and Jesse. You ought to get along nicely with Jesse. He digs shotguns too.”

  Maybe it was their common interest, but she thought Jesse McAlester was clearly the handsomest and the smile he got was double-strength. He grinned back, awkward but interested, and he waved the shotgun in greeting.

  “Moving right along,” Merlin continued as he lit a fresh corona and automatically handed one to Allison, “we have found the Martians’ hideout. That’s the Lietzen-Stoller mob, honey.”

  Fraulein Cassel blinked and sat up very straight, and wondered whether the BND knew about this.

  “No, they don’t,” Merlin said, reading her thoughts, “but I’ve been too busy to tell them. Okay, here’s the drill. All past evidence convinces me that the Martians will take the money and kill our woman. I figure we’ll burn them first.”

  He’d said it—loud and clear.

  “The drop at the Grunwald? The million dollars?” she blurted.

  Merlin snapped his fingers. “Knew there was something I forgot—three things. Fellow I know—one they called the Godfather—will deliver the cash at five if we don’t blast her free at four. We’re going to take them as they come out of their house—ambush. Latest thing in ambushes. You’ll love it.”

  “Yes?”

  “Second, I didn’t mention it back at your place because I knew your flat was wired from the day after I met you.”

  Smug bastard.

  “Third, stick real close. We work family-style. Wouldn’t be right if you tried to call Grad about our little change in plans. Wouldn’t be loyal.”

  Or healthy.

  She understood, and she hoped that Karl Grad would. She felt better when Merlin urged her to consider this “a joint CIA-BND operation” in which she was representing West German interests, and promised her that most of the credit would go to the Federal Republic’s counterespionage forces.

  “Okay, Freddy?”

  “Okay.”

  Cavaliere brought out the street maps and the aerial photos, and Merlin assigned the duties and street positions. The shooters were given nearby rooftops or high apartments with clean fields of fire. The film was screened again, and Merlin explained how the street would be sealed by a squad of agents handpicked by the Godfather. Lomas wouldn’t want his name mentioned in her presence, and Merlin saw no reason to provoke him unnecessarily. He told Freddy Cassel what she was to do, nothing more.

  “Split-second timing and absolute command control every second, every step of the way, are our only chance to get her out alive,” Merlin said. “Perfect coordination—like the Radio City Rockettes or the TV coverage of a big fast ball game. I’m going to be watching all the plays from all the angles, and I’ll be calling the shots. Listen carefully to exactly what I say, and trust me.”

  “My men follow orders,” the sharpshooter captain announced with a trace of soldierly pride.

  Ed Budge flashed his thumbs-up ratification, and the explosives expert beside him called out “All the way, Merl.” The rest of the band merely nodded. They knew the game and the rules. They’d played with Merlin before.

  “Just like Athens?”

  “Just like Athens, Rosie.”

  “That was baaad,” the black man recalled admiringly.

  “Same headsets?” the shotgunner asked.

  “Headsets, flak jackets. One thing different—we’re military jets. On the radio, I’ll be Charl
ie Leader and you’ll each have numbers. Charlie One, Charlie Two. The shooters will be Baker flight, with Captain Rodriguez the Baker leader. Any questions?”

  The only voice that sounded was female.

  “When do I get my shotgun?”

  “Jesse, be nice to the lady,” Merlin instructed.

  It turned out that the young German woman was not only intelligent, professional and busty but also quite knowledgeable about the hand and shoulder weapons of the major powers. McAlester was delighted to find that her interest in shotguns was genuine, and he lit up when she asked for the same brand and model that he favored.

  It was a pleasure to meet a pretty woman who really appreciated fine shotguns, he thought.

  It was wonderful to meet a man who respected her professional skills as much as he admired her beauty, she thought. This was a man to whom she could relate, and she hoped that he wasn’t quite as shy as he seemed. They talked animatedly about shotguns for six or seven minutes while she watched his face for some sign of personal interest.

  Nothing definite—yet.

  Then they discussed the fine points of shotgun loads, ammo pouches, bandoliers and other gear for another five minutes, on a friendly but not truly personal basis. She began thinking of how she might encourage him—just a bit.

  It wasn’t necessary.

  All of a sudden, it happened.

  “Fraulein,” he said with a boyish-charming smile, “what’re you doin’ after the ambush?”

  35

  Typical setup.

  Six small screens set in the video panel, with gauges and dials below and beside the frosty glass rectangles.

  Jutting out beneath the black knobs, a Formica-topped shelf decorated with the inevitable half-filled ashtray and half-empty carton of tepid bad coffee.

  Tense but competent director in a swivel chair, leaning forward compulsively toward the microphone that squatted between the dying coffee and the dead cigarettes.

  Typical television control room.

  As usual, the director was in his shirtsleeves with no tie and a look of concentration. There was something unusual about this man, however. Very few of the TV directors in Hollywood, London, Rome or other large cities wear .357 Magnums in belly holsters, and hardly any keep 8.8 pounds of Uzi submachine gun across their laps. It may catch on later, for Merlin was always a trend setter.