As the convoy of cars moved off, the bodyguard looked at the cell phone in his hand and shut off the call he was about to make to the cops. There was nothing left for him to do, so he slipped the cell phone into his pocket and followed Babs out of the gas station.
Amos was sleeping in the chair beside his wife’s bed, dreaming about himself and Captain Dubrovski. They were sitting in the centre of a concentration camp, surrounded by Jews. A car came careening through the camp and crashed at their feet. His wife tumbled out and started screaming for Holly. He woke up and sat upright in the chair. He forgot the dream immediately and leaned forward, looking at his wife. She seemed to be sleeping peacefully. Amos had a bad taste in his mouth and needed a coffee, so he levered himself out of the chair and walked softly across the room to the door. The police officer was still sitting outside.
‘Gonna get a coffee,’ he said. ‘You want one?’
The cop shook his head. ‘I go off duty in thirty minutes. Thanks anyway.’
Amos sauntered off down the corridor thinking about Dubrovski and how serious he must have taken the threat to his wife by having a police officer posted outside the door. He had been told that his wife’s accident was her own fault; she had driven through a junction at high speed and collided with another car. So why was the cop there? Was it to guard Judith or to keep an eye on Amos? He knew that sooner or later Dubrovski would be obliged to put a police officer with him permanently in case he decided to take the law into his own hands and go off on a wild search for his daughter. It would also be a safeguard against any of the kidnappers contacting Amos without the department knowing.
These thoughts continued running through Amos’s mind as he helped himself to a coffee in the small kitchen at the end of the corridor. As he walked back to his wife’s room, he began to think about Dubrovski and the Jews in his dream. He turned round before reaching the door and signalled to the officer he had forgotten to put sugar in his coffee.
He went back to the kitchen and put his cup down. He then went to find a pay phone. Although there was one in his wife’s room with an outside line, he decided that he didn’t want the cop outside the door to know he was making a call. It took Amos a while to find the number of the person he wanted, but only a couple of minutes to explain the situation. Then he went back to the room, put his coffee on a small table and resumed his vigil at his wife’s bedside.
Thirty minutes later, Amos heard footsteps outside the room. He turned towards the door as it opened and the police officer who had been on duty popped his head in.
‘Just going off duty, Lieutenant. Officer Steel is on. You want to speak to him?’
Amos shook his head. ‘No thanks.’
The young man closed the door and left Amos to continue his vigil. Amos gave it about ten minutes and leaned forward, bringing his mouth up against his wife’s ear. He whispered softly.
‘Judith sweetheart, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I can sit here with you and wait until they find Holly, or I can go out there and find her myself. I know what you would want me to do, so I’m going to give it my best shot. I love you sweetheart. Always will.’ He took hold of her hand and squeezed it gently. There was no reaction from his wife. Then he leaned closer and kissed her gently on the lips.
The cop outside looked up from the magazine he was reading as Amos stepped into the corridor.
‘Just going to get a coffee. Be a couple of minutes.’
The officer nodded and went back to his magazine. About thirty minutes went by before he realized that Amos had not reappeared. He frowned and put his magazine down, then headed towards the kitchen. There was no one there, so he retraced his footsteps and looked in the room where Amos’s wife lay. Amos wasn’t there either. He noticed a cup on the small table beside the bed. He could see that it was still full of coffee. He swore and picked up the phone.
General Mort Tyler was not in the best of moods, having just received a call from Babs Mason about Demski’s antics on the Beltway. She had sounded pretty upset, frightened almost. Tyler knew that the dangerous game they were playing was high risk, but he expected all his main players to accept that. The prize on offer was worth the gamble, and Babs Mason was a key player. Weakness was the last thing he would tolerate.
He considered the threat from Demski and decided that the man was pitching above his weight by threatening Gus Mason’s chance of the presidency. Demski was a hood, a gangster, and understood intimidation and back alley murders. What he had never had to cope with was a full frontal assault by well-trained men. Although Gus Mason was now under ‘light’ security by the American secret service, there was no reason why they should be told of Demski’s interest. If they picked up the head of the Jewish Mafia, he would shout his head off from the rooftops and the press would be all over it. Mason would be tarnished by any accusations Demski made, and all the denials in the world would not improve his chances at the election. No, Tyler knew he had to use his own men and get the problem solved in his own way. The press would then believe it was gang warfare. But Demski would be dead and that was all that mattered.
Captain Dubrovski got to the hospital as fast as he could, even though speed was not essential; Amos was not there. The young police officer could not be blamed for the lieutenant’s absence. After all, he was only there to stop uninvited people going into the room. Dubrovski cursed his own lack of professionalism in not putting a police officer with Amos. It wouldn’t have been the first time a cop had gone absent to deliver his own form of justice to a villain. In Amos’s case it was pretty obvious he had got it into his head that he stood a better chance of finding his daughter than the police department. Bearing in mind the insidious control that Judge Lawrence had over the men who worked at the 7th Precinct, and up as far as Police Chief Holder, he could understand why Amos trusted no one. He arranged for a second guard to be posted at the hospital to compensate for Amos’s disappearance and went back to his office hoping that the detective would get in touch with him. But he couldn’t figure out why Amos had disappeared and where he thought he was going to go.
Gus Mason flew in from the state of California after enjoying a very successful campaign. There had been plenty of hand shaking, back slapping and promises of votes and funding during the visit. But behind the politician’s veneer, Mason’s heart was troubled. The latest developments involving his wife and the disappearance of Amos’s little girl served no useful purpose other than to damage irretrievably his chances of making the White House. He had phoned ahead and asked for a meeting with Mort Tyler and Henry Lawrence. The limousine that picked him up from the airport took him straight to the Mort Tyler building and the office that the general used whenever he was in New York.
Mort Tyler and Judge Lawrence were in the room when Mason walked in. He tossed his briefcase on to a convenient chair and helped himself to a coffee as the two men stood up to greet him. He looked stressed out after the flight from the West Coast, and it showed in his demeanour towards the two men.
‘You want to tell me what the fuck is going on here?’ He kept his eye on the cup as he poured the coffee. ‘I’m breaking my ass over on the West Coast while you’re doing your level best to ruin my chances.’ He slammed the glass jug down hard and looked at Tyler and Lawrence, anger blazing in his eyes. ‘And who the fuck authorized the kidnap? What brain thought that one up?’
Mort Tyler approached him, a condescending smile on his face. ‘Sit down, Gus. I know you’re het up. You’ve had a long journey, so just calm down and let’s talk about it.’
‘And what about Babs? The Demski mob?’ He sounded incredulous. ‘They’re nothing!’
Tyler put his hand on Mason’s shoulder. ‘That’s all in hand. Babs won’t be driving herself anywhere now; we’re going to authorize a staff car and a permanent escort.’
Mason tossed his head back. ‘She’ll be bloody furious. One thing she values above all else is her independence.’
‘There’s n
o going back, Gus.’ This came from Lawrence. ‘The stakes are too high. No one is going to get in the way of your right to be president. We’ve got a lot of people in important positions who are there because we put them there. They will have more power than they ever dreamed of when we have control. And no jumped up little police detective or a gang of thugs is going to stop us. And if you want to know which brain authorized the little girl’s kidnap, it was mine.’
Mason glared at him. ‘What the fuck for? Why couldn’t you just take Amos out?’
Lawrence shook his head. ‘Taking Amos out would not have solved anything. We don’t control all the police departments in New Jersey. We have to show caution, Gus. We know Amos has his captain, Dubrovski on his side. Can’t keep killing every damn detective who thinks he’s on to us.’
Mason sat down and put his cup on the coffee table. ‘So what happens now?’
‘What happens now,’ Mort Tyler told him, ‘is that we deal with Demski.’
Mason looked away from the judge and fixed Tyler with a hard stare. ‘And how do you plan to do that?’
‘It’s not your concern, Gus,’ Tyler replied. ‘All you have to do is keep pulling in the votes and acting like a president. We’ll keep cleaning up behind you. We have more than enough men capable of taking on a few hoods.’
‘Why is the Demski family involved in this?’
Tyler made a face. ‘Demski told Babs that he knew the truth about your birthright; said you had to pull out of the election.’ He raised his eyebrows and opened his hands in an empty gesture.
‘But how would they know about that?’
Tyler shrugged. ‘Demski was in Germany recently. He was with a guy called Haman. They went to see Franz Weber who was Hauptman Lörenz’s driver towards the end of the war. He was in the Reich Chancellery at the end. They talked about Eva Braun and where she was taken to from the Chancellery. Weber’s nurse reported the conversation to our Aryan League. The decision was taken by them to terminate Weber and his nurse.’
Mason raised his head a little in complete understanding of the warped justification laid on the act of murder; particularly that of the nurse who was only doing what she saw as her duty to the organization.
‘Demski went to Switzerland, to the sanatorium. I think he realized we were on to him, but he managed to keep one step ahead of us.’
‘But what made Demski go to Germany in the first place?’ Mason asked.
‘Gunter Haman. He was the German who contacted Isaac Demski. We discovered that he was in the chancellery as a boy soldier the day the Führer died.’
‘How did you find that out?’
‘Weber told the Aryan organization. Before they killed him,’ Tyler added without emotion.
Mason switched his position and looked across at Lawrence. ‘Your father was there. Did this German guy, Haman know about him?’
Lawrence nodded. ‘We believe he did. So we kept an eye on Demski and Haman for a while. Demski went back to Germany. Our colleagues over there tried to take them out. They failed.’ He said it simply, leaving out the spectacular details of the fire-bombing of Haman’s place.
‘So Demski’s back here trying to finger us, is that it?’ Mason asked. ‘Can’t we pay him off?’
Lawrence laughed. ‘Don’t be naïve, Gus; Demski is a Jew. He knows what we represent and will do his level best to stop us.’
‘So that’s why we’ve decided to take them out,’ Tyler told him, ‘the whole fucking bunch of them.’
‘Don’t you think that will draw attention to us?’ Mason asked, seriously doubting the logic of such an action.
Tyler shook his head. ‘We have enough influence with the press to make sure they see it as gang warfare. The public will believe what they read in the papers. And don’t forget, Gus, you’re hot stuff. The public won’t have a bad word said against you. Anything else in the press and it will look like mudslinging.’ He spread his hands. ‘It’s a cinch, believe me. Demski and his mob won’t be a problem.’
Mason seemed to be satisfied at the general’s explanation. His thoughts turned back to Amos’s daughter. ‘Where’s the girl?’
‘Best you don’t know, Gus.’ This was Lawrence who answered. ‘She’s safe and well looked after.’
‘But what about Amos? He’ll have the whole bloody police force breathing down our necks.’
Lawrence shook his head. ‘Not so. He’s disappeared. No one knows where he is.’
He then explained the situation regarding Amos’s wife and the lieutenant’s disappearance from the hospital.
Mason reflected on what he had been told and how the two men were managing the deteriorating situation. They didn’t appear to be affected by it; they knew what they were doing. He conceded that they were right to keep him out of the loop because he needed to be fully committed to the campaign. And they were so close. Another week and the convention would be upon them, and he would almost certainly be selected as the party’s candidate. It was that close he could almost taste it in his mouth. And he liked it.
‘Right,’ he said suddenly, looking at his watch. ‘I’ve got the rest of the day off, so I’ll spend that with Babs; we’ve got a busy day tomorrow.’ He drained his cup and picked up the briefcase he had thrown on to the chair. ‘Good day, gentlemen.’
The two men shook his hand and watched him leave. When he had gone, Tyler looked at Lawrence and heaved a big sigh.
‘We’re that close, Henry,’ he said shaking his head and holding up his two hands. They were almost touching. ‘That close.’
Babs Mason pulled up outside Bill Mason’s place, spreading a cloud of dust as the wheels of her Jeep slowed to a halt. She hadn’t been told of the change of plan that meant she would no longer be driving herself, but would have a chauffeur at all times. She hopped out and pulled the keys to the house from her handbag as she stepped on to the front porch. She paused for a moment, looking at the door and remembered the last time she had stood there. Bill Mason had opened the door. She could see him now, still handsome in the twilight of his years. Something stirred inside her and she felt a twinge of regret. Tears pricked the backs of her eyes and she blinked them away quickly.
She opened the door and stepped into the huge room that served as Mason’s lounge. It was as if he had never left it. Nothing had been done to the place since the funeral; Gus had seen to that. He wanted no one to touch anything until he had been through his father’s possessions.
She dropped her handbag on to a long sideboard and stopped. There was something odd, something she couldn’t put her finger on. The house was quiet, but there was an eerie sense of a presence there. Babs didn’t believe in ghosts and decided it was simply the fact that Bill had stamped his character on the place so indelibly, that there would always be something of him in the house.
She went through to the kitchen and lifted the kettle from the side. But as she picked it up, she put it down again. It was warm. She put her hand on the side of the kettle and was convinced there was some heat there. She looked around slowly and called out.
‘Anybody here?’
There was no response and Babs told herself she was just being silly. The kettle was just beneath the kitchen window so it must have been the sunlight that had warmed it. She picked the kettle up and filled it with water, then put it on to boil. She decided she would need several coffees now because she was feeling a little edgy.
Babs had decided to take some time out of her daily schedule. She knew Gus would be arriving back from the West Coast and would expect to spend some time with her, even if it was only for the sake of appearances. When she reached Gus in California he told her he needed to get over to the ranch himself and pick up some paperwork. Babs knew that he would be terribly busy from the moment he touched down in New York, so she decided to be at the house when he arrived.
Once she had made her coffee, she began walking through the house, drinking the coffee and recalling fond memories of her time there with Gus’s father. She began to op
en drawers and close them again, not really seeing anything in them. Her own reactions when she opened Mason’s cupboards surprised her; she found herself becoming quite emotional. It was even worse when she realized that Bill had never thrown away any of the jackets or sweaters that she had bought him when they had been together during their first affair. She lifted the sleeves of the sweaters and could almost smell him. The tears came easily then and she had to leave the clothes alone and forget him.
As Babs was closing one of the wardrobes, she saw a small box on the top shelf. She pulled it out and opened it. Inside was a small hand gun; a Beretta. There was a box of cartridges with it. She immediately thought of Demski and decided she might be better off by having the gun on her should he come calling again. She took the gun and the cartridges through to where she had left her bag and slipped them in. Suddenly she felt a little more confident; having the gun in her bag gave her a lift.
She heard a noise coming from outside the house. She thought it might be Gus, so she went through to the front door and pulled it open. There was nobody there. She stood on the porch and looked around but could see nobody. She shrugged, deciding that she had imagined it.
Babs had no idea how long it would be before her husband arrived, so she decided to continue her trip down memory lane and walk around the ranch, recalling happier days. She knew that once Gus was president, there would be no freedom such as she was enjoying at that moment. She needed to make full use of it.
There was really only one place away from the house that could evoke fond memories of Bill Mason, and that was the barn where he kept his beloved Buick. She wandered across to the large shed and slid the door open. As it rolled back, Babs almost expected to see his car there. But it wasn’t, of course. She walked into the barn and immediately saw a black Chevrolet Sedan.
The Boy from Berlin Page 18
