A Shark Out of Water

by Emma Lathen

  “So you must be concerned about eco-terrorists getting into the act,” Oblonski continued.

  “I’ve read the papers. Nothing seems to be proven yet.”

  Oblonski sidestepped the matter of proof. “So, you heard about Brigitte. Now, I don’t suppose you happen to know anything about the Brigitte, do you? Something, for example, that made you suddenly decide to visit Copenhagen?”

  The Brigitte? No, I never heard of it before. As for my hop to Copenhagen, it was a spur of the moment desire to see my family.”

  “Then why were you nosing around the Rasmussen home last night?” Oblonski shot at him.

  Since celebrity always carries the danger of recognition, Andersen had been braced for this one. He heard his own voice, calm and disdainful. “Nosing around is a strange way to put it, Colonel. My wife happened to mention that the Rasmussens owned the Brigitte. It seemed only courteous to call on them, both to express my sympathy and to offer any assistance I could.”

  “By bumbling around their backyard, knocking over benches?” Oblonski demanded. Without a quaver, Andersen said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I rang the doorbell. When it appeared that no one was home, I left.”

  Oblonski balanced a pencil between two forefingers. After aligning it perfectly, he looked up at Andersen. “But you do know the Rasmussens.”

  “They are acquaintances of my wife,” said Andersen. “Now, if you’re finished . . .”

  “Perhaps we could go over your trip a little more thoroughly, if you don’t mind. I realize you can refuse. After all, you’re here quite informally. And I’m sure that’s the way we both want to keep it.”

  Andersen first made sure that he was settled comfortably in the hard wooden chair provided for him. Then he gave Oblonski permission to proceed. “Go right ahead,” he said evenly.

  Two hours later, Andersen reached the Novatel. His room was neither warm nor welcoming, but it was a haven. He poured himself a stiff drink, then took a greedy gulp before he sank onto the bed. Propping himself against the pillow, he tried reviewing his performance but, as fatigue weighed his eyelids, Oblonski gradually disappeared, to be replaced by phantoms, Christian as a bright-eyed child of angelic innocence, Clara white-faced in her kitchen, Stefan Zabriski mouthing obscene accusations. Then the darkness at the window overtook him and he slept.

  Minutes later, or was it hours? he was jerked awake. Convulsively sweeping glass and contents to the rug, he sat up and listened again. The tapping on the door was gentle, almost apologetic. For a moment Andersen remained motionless. Then he swung his legs off the bed. “Just a minute,” he muttered, shuffling to the door and flinging it open.

  “May I come in?” asked Annamarie Nordstrom. In a long raincoat and a floppy hat, she could have been in disguise. But there was nothing furtive about her request and Andersen, trying to clear the cobwebs from his brain, gestured an invitation.

  “Good heavens!” she murmured, two steps in. “Perhaps opening the window would help with that smell.” The frigid blast that aired the room led her to keep her coat on. It also reminded Andersen that he and Madame Nordstrom were not on terms close enough to justify unannounced visits.

  As if she read his thoughts, she flushed slightly. “I got worried about you, Eric. When you didn’t turn up this afternoon, I was afraid that something might have happened.” The effort was not up to her usual standard, but Andersen fastened on his own interpretation.

  “You mean you thought I’d been arrested, don’t you?” he inquired. This was too much for her.

  “Look, Eric, yesterday we found out some Danish cruiser is under serious suspicion. Then you take off for Copenhagen saying you’ll be back today. And you don’t show up. I just want to know what’s going on.”

  “All right, if you must know, I got hauled in by Oblonski. Somehow he found out that I went to see the owners of the Brigitte.”

  “Why did you do that?” she asked baldly.

  “That’s nobody’s business but mine,” he said. “Not yours or Colonel Oblonski’s.” The rebuff had its effect.

  “I have no desire to intrude on your personal affairs,” she retorted. “However, the police seem to be tying all this to Stefan’s murder. That, you have to admit, is my business.” For a moment they glared at each other. Then, shrugging his irritability aside, he began pacing the room.

  “You can see what’s happening, can’t you?” he said over his shoulder. “Zabriski uncovers something about the canal before he’s murdered, and then these notes come out of nowhere. Suddenly a lot of good, decent people are getting a black eye.”

  “Everybody knows the radicals, even if they did do something crazy, are just a fringe group,” she interjected.

  “But their activities can be used to discredit the rest of us.”

  “Including me?” she asked wryly.

  “Especially you,” he said, diverted from his own preoccupation. “If they decide that Zabriski was murdered by environmentalists, of any sort, you’re going to see BADA turn into a trade association. You know, Annamarie, you ought to start taking steps to protect yourself.”

  Her mission was taking a turn she disliked. “Believe me, I will,” she riposted. “But, in the meantime, it won’t do for either of us to become paranoid, will it?”

  “Paranoid my foot,” he said crudely. “Wait until you’ve got Oblonski on your tail.”

  Although she realized there was nothing more to say, Annamarie could not leave in silence. “I see no reason to be alarmed,” she said, rising decisively. “However, I did want to be sure that you were all right. You are, aren’t you, Eric?”

  “I’m fine,” he said. Then, in a slightly different spirit: “And you, are you fine too?” “Yes,” she said curtly.

  That made two liars instead of one.

  * * *

  Eric Andersen and Annamarie Nordstrom were not the only pair holding discussions away from BADA. As John Thatcher crossed the hotel lobby the next morning, he was flagged down.

  “We should talk, John,” said Peter von Hennig. But the Hevelius did not suit his purposes. “There’s a place down by the embankment,” he said. “We can be private there.”

  The Café Polonia was small and cheerless. In one dim recess, a student read his newspaper. Behind a long counter, the proprietor was deep in conversation with the lone waitress. “This will do,” announced von Hennig after careful scrutiny.

  “If you say so,” said Thatcher dubiously.

  “It’s all these stories about terrorism at Kiel,” von Hennig began as soon as they were seated. They’ve thrown Bonn into a panic.” Observing that he had Thatcher’s undivided attention, he grew more expansive. “They’ve totally revised their policy, John. The German government now intends to start the canal project as soon as possible.”

  At this juncture the waitress drifted up. While von Hennig busied himself with the ordering, Thatcher considered the implications of this about-face. On the one hand, it revived the possibility that heaven was going to shower gold on the Sloan and other foresighted banks. But appearances are often misleading.

  “As soon as possible?” he repeated when von Hennig was available. “Exactly what does that mean?”

  “Next spring, for God’s sake,” von Hennig snapped. “And they haven’t even thrashed out which proposal they’ll adopt.”

  “Even though these letters may be a hoax, as the German police seem to think?”

  “Now they know the canal is vulnerable, they’ve gone hysterical. With all this publicity they’re afraid of copycats. You wouldn’t believe the security precautions they’re taking.” Right or wrong, this decision raised certain other difficulties.

  “And what about BADA’s role in the financing?” Thatcher asked.

  “Scrapped,” von Hennig announced bitterly. “Unless we get some kind of miracle in the next two weeks we can kiss BADA good-bye. Nobody is including them as long as they’re knee-deep in an unsolved murder and suspicions of embezzlement.”

/>   If Peter was this upset, how did the chairman of BADA feel?

  “What would you expect?” von Hennig answered Thatcher’s question when it was voiced. “She’s white with fury.”

  No wonder, thought Thatcher. A five-year opportunity to restore BADA’s respectability had just shrunk to two weeks. And all because of a couple of letters, quite possibly faked. Either Madame Nordstrom was the victim of a very unfortunate coincidence, or somebody had been remarkably clever.

  * * *

  Neither nature nor life had prepared Annamarie Nordstrom for the role of supine victim. Peter von Hennig would have been astonished to learn that he had been permitted to witness only a carefully calculated fraction of her anger. After his departure, she took the unusual step of returning to her own apartment, ostensibly for lunch. Actually it was to place a secure call to her husband, the only person in the world with whom she could not only vent the full measure of her bottled-up rage, but use language never heard in the office of BADA’s chairman.

  “Somebody’s screwed me,” she snarled at the end of her account of Germany’s turnabout. “You can see what’s going on, can’t you? A couple of phony notes are mailed and those assholes in Bonn stampede like a bunch of mindless cattle.” Like most working politicians, Madame Nordstrom harbored an opinion of her professional confreres even lower than that of the general public.

  “Now wait a minute, honey. Sure things haven’t turned out right. But that doesn’t mean some evil genius is behind them. There’s the accident at the canal, there’s a lot of brouhaha about terrorists and then the government responds, maybe not intelligently but predictably. That could be all there is to it. You yourself said the disaster couldn’t have been deliberately rigged.”

  “Like hell that’s all there is to it. What about a murder smack in the middle of BADA? And why do I have the feeling that, in some weird way, Stefan Zabriski is responsible for everything?”

  “Even if he was, he’s dead now.”

  “And that’s supposed to make him a saint?”

  “No, but it does mean two things. First, he can’t be pulling strings any longer and, second, he’s out of reach.” While grumpily acknowledging the force of at least his second point, she was not mollified.

  “Whoever it is, isn’t going to get away with this,” she promised.

  “Use your head, honey. Once the Germans have announced their decision to go forward at once, they’re through listening to people advocating delay. You’ll just be wasting your time; there’s nothing you can do.”

  Her reply came like a whiplash. “Don’t bet on it!” She was not through by a long shot. It took several different formulations of her indignation before she managed to discharge her accumulated spleen. But all good marriages are based on some form of quid pro quo. Nils Nordstrom had his own complaints against the world. He had just discovered the duplicity of his South American distributor and was ready to boil over himself.

  “. . . playing fancy games with the Baccarat people behind my back. . .”

  “. . . a warehouse filled with stuff that was never shipped for the holiday season . . .”

  “. . . canned him this morning and told him where he could put his rake-offs . . .”

  For ten minutes Annamarie heard about iniquities stretching from specialty shops in Caracas to department stores in Buenos Aires. This wifely docility paid for itself. By the time the phones were grounded in Gdansk and Stockholm she had regained the power to think dispassionately.

  Nils, of course, was absolutely right. The German government was no longer interested in suggestions for delay. They would be too busy planning their progress. Suddenly the light of simple wickedness beamed from her eye. Then let them hear from those supporting immediate action. Once again she reached for the phone, this time to dial an important personage in Germany.

  “Good afternoon, Herr Keppel,” she began. “I’ve just learned of the decision about the canal.”

  “Yes, isn’t that wonderful news. Sad, of course, that it took a catastrophe to bring the cabinet to its senses. But at least they’ve come up with the right response.”

  “Naturally everybody in the Baltic is interested and all sorts of rumors are flying around. But I realized that you, with your long commitment to this project, must know exactly what is happening. Can it really be true that the government is already conferring with Herr Schmidt about his proposals?” Herr Keppel’s satisfaction evaporated on the spot.

  “What?” he thundered. “But that man’s suggestions could be ruinous. His over-elaborate program would take forever.”

  “I confess I am somewhat concerned,” she murmured. “It almost seems as if they are rushing things through in order to present a fait accompli without any consideration of more moderate approaches.” Annamarie had never studied the differing schemes for modernizing the Kiel Canal. But, as Herr Keppel’s anxiety overflowed, she learned all that she needed to know for her second call.

  “Good afternoon, Herr Schmidt. I’ve just learned of the decision about. . .” Every call produced new names and new material. She did not cease her efforts until she had spread alarm throughout six groups, all powerful enough to demand the attention of their government and all dismayed at the thought of the opposition stealing a march. With any luck they could mop up cabinet attention for months to come.

  “Time,” she told herself with weary contentment. “This is all about time.”

  * * *

  Eric Andersen retained enough of his Calvinist upbringing to accept the hangover stabbing at his temples that morning as an appropriate penalty for past sins. Nonetheless it added to his woes upon hearing the morning’s news and impaired the efficiency of his reaction. His first impulse was to press the red button to every environmental organization on the continent. Second, and more painful, thoughts obtruded.

  “No,” he was saying ten minutes later. “The memorandum from the Nordic Wildlife Coalition should go out over your name. In view of the lengthy absence my work at BADA will entail, your position as acting chairman should be recognized.”

  Entirely misreading the situation, the schoolmistress was overcome. “Oh, Eric, I appreciate the honor and I’ll see that it gets out tonight.” She was not the only acting chairman to be similarly acknowledged that day.

  “We have to think of the greater good,” Andersen told his wife several hours and several aspirins later. “Right now the use of my name could be counterproductive. We’ll have to stay behind the scenes as much as possible.”

  “I suppose that goes for my family too.”

  “Even more so.”

  Neither Andersen nor his wife wished to discuss the obvious reasons for this strategy. “It won’t be easy,” Clara said sadly, thinking of the many organizational letterheads prominently featuring one of those names. “But I’ll warn Frieda.”

  * * *

  For the poorer members of BADA the decision could have only one consequence. The more Germany and BADA diverted funds to the canal project, the less money would flow into their own coffers. Looking around for a scapegoat, they found one. Anton Vigotis was their unlikely choice. “It’s fine for you,” they lashed out. “You’ve got your harbor. They enlarge the canal, bring in a lot more shipping, and Tallinn’s sitting there with modern, new facilities ready to suck the lifeblood from its neighbors.”

  The charge was led by Casimir Radan, his white moustache bristling with ferocity. “We could have won the next grant and competed with you,” he declared, unaware of Madame Nordstrom’s plans to perpetuate Gdansk as a symbol of regional decay. “Now you’ll get rich on the traffic diverted from us.” Vigotis was not lacking in diplomatic skills but he was suffering from stupefaction. For the first time in recorded history Estonia was being labeled as another one of the fat cats.

  Chapter 21

  Pushing Off

  But no matter how varied reaction was to Germany’s revised plans in some quarters, Leonhard Bach saw only victory, pure and simple. “This calls for the biggest p
arty Gdansk has ever seen,” he declared exuberantly.

  Since his employees knew what was good for them, they scrambled to meet his deadline. As a result, two days before the great night, with photo crews arriving to capture every moment, the props were all in place.

  After inspecting the best that the city had to offer, Bach finally chose a historic mansion strategically located in the heart of Old Town. To reach it, his guests would retrace the steps of many a feudal grandee. They would enter under a massive Renaissance portal, within shadows cast by an ancient church. Then, proceeding past a double row of tributes to 15th century greatness, they would find their goal within sight and sound of the lapping waters of the River Motlawa.

  “I am surprised,” said Peter von Hennig, hearing of the preparations under way, “that Bach doesn’t plan to have the waiters wearing jerkins and leggings.” Thatcher’s only anxiety about this predilection for the antique had centered on the disabled Everett Gabler. But it had been easy to expand the invitation to include the Gomulkas. So on the night of the party, there was a strong right arm assisting the invalid through architectural hurdles.

  Fortunately Leonhard Bach had selected a building that had undergone discreet modernization. The heavily paneled walls and the richly carved furniture, all almost black with age, would have been oppressive had it not been for lavish lighting reflected by arrays of crystal and silver.

  Thatcher surveyed the scene with some approval. “At least Bach has leavened the BADA mix,” he said. “He’s invited outsiders and they’ve brought their wives, or whatever.” Dilution, he always maintained, helped. Tonight Carol Gomulka, in bright red silk, was far from the most colorful woman present. In an anteroom, furs were being doffed to reveal midthigh skirts, regal ball gowns, and gauzy harem pants. There was even one spandex sheath.

  “Wow,” said Carol reverently. “He’s got everything here.”

  It was another advantage that they were occupying a space that was human in scale. Instead of a vast great hall, Bach’s party was unfolding in a series of medium sized salons that offered the opportunity for congenial encounters or, in a pinch, escape. Depositing Gabler on a settee with Bill Gomulka in attendance, Thatcher took Carol by the arm and set off in search of their host. They found Leonhard Bach nearby, holding forth to the Polish delegate to BADA and to Adam Zabriski. He broke off when Thatcher greeted him.