Games Of State (1996)

by Tom - Op Center 03 Clancy

  "The girls thought he was joking," Hausen continued, "and one of them put her hand on Gerard's arm to say something--I don't recall what. But Gerard said how dare she talk down to him and he pushed her away. She stumbled back over her own foot, into the river. The water wasn't deep there, but of course the poor girl didn't know that. She screamed. God, how she screamed. Her friend dropped her camera and ran to help, but Gerard grabbed her. He held her with the inside of his elbow around her neck. She was gasping, the girl in the water was screaming, and I was paralyzed. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. Finally, I ran to help the girl in the river. She had swallowed water and was coughing. I struggled to get her to stand still, let alone pull her out. Gerard was angry that I tried to help, and while he yelled at me he held the girl very hard...."

  Hausen stopped. The anguish in his eyes had spread. His brow was pale now, and his mouth was slack. His hands were trembling. He balled them to make them stop.

  Hood took a step toward him. "You don't have to continue--"

  "I do," Hausen insisted. "Now that Gerard is back, the story must be told. I may fall, but he must be brought down as well." Hausen rolled his lips together and took a moment to compose himself. "Gerard dropped the girl to the ground," he continued. "She was unconscious. Then he ran to the river, jumped in, and pushed the other girl down. I tried to stop him, but I lost my footing and went under. Gerard held her there"--Hausen was pushing down with his hands--"yelling things about American girls being whores. By the time I got up it was too late. The girl was bobbing in the river, her brown hair floating behind her. Gerard left her, pulled himself from the water, and dragged the other girl in. Then he told me to come away with him. I was in a daze. I fumbled in the dark, picking my things up, and went with him. God help me, without even knowing if the girl he'd choked was dead I left with him."

  "And no one saw you?" Hood asked. "No one heard and came to see what was happening?"

  "Perhaps they heard, but no one cared. Students were always shouting about something, or screaming because of the rats by the river. Perhaps they thought the girls were making love by the river. The shrieks--it could have been that."

  "What did you do after you left?" Hood asked.

  "We went to Gerard's father's estate in the south of France and remained there for several weeks. Gerard asked me to stay, to go into business with them. He really did like me. We were of different social backgrounds, yet he respected my views. I was the only one who told him that he was a hypocrite, living in luxury and enjoying his family's money while admiring Trotsky and Marx. He liked the way I challenged him. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't stay with him. So I returned to Germany. But I found no peace there, and so ..."

  He stopped, looked down at his fists. They were shaking and he relaxed them.

  "So I went to the French Embassy in Germany," Hausen said, "and I told them what had happened. I told them everything. They said they would question Gerard, and I told them where they could find me. I was willing to go to jail, just to appease my guilt."

  "And what happened?"

  "The French police," Hausen said bitterly, "are different from other police forces. They look to settle cases, not solve them, particularly when they involve foreigners. To them, these were unsolved murders and they would remain unsolved."

  "Did they even question Gerard?"

  "I don't know," Hausen said. "But even if they did, think of it. A word of a French billionaire's son against that of a poor German boy."

  "But he had to have explained why he left school suddenly--"

  Hausen said, "Herr Hood, Gerard was the kind of man who could convince you, who could really convince you, that he left school because Trotsky's Mexican speeches were omitted from a text."

  "What about the parents of the girls? I can't believe they let it go at that."

  "What could they do?" Hausen asked. "They came to France and they demanded justice. They petitioned the French Embassy in Washington and the American Embassy in Paris. They offered rewards. But the girls' bodies were returned to America, the French turned their backs on the families, and that was that, more or less."

  "More or less?"

  There were tears in Hausen's eyes. "Gerard wrote to me several weeks later. He said he would return some day, to teach me a lesson about cowardice and betrayal."

  "Other than that, you didn't hear from him?"

  "Not until today when he phoned me. I went back to school, here in Germany, ashamed and consumed with guilt."

  "But you hadn't done anything," Hood said. "You tried to stop Gerard."

  "My crime was remaining silent immediately afterwards," Hausen said. "Like the many who smelled the fires at Auschwitz, I said nothing."

  "There's a matter of degree, don't you think?"

  Hausen shook his head. "Silence is silence is silence," he said. "A killer is at large because of my silence. He now calls himself Gerard Dominique. And he has threatened me and my thirteen-year-old daughter."

  "I didn't realize you had children," Hood said. "Where is she?"

  "She lives with her mother in Berlin," Hausen said. "I'll have her watched, but Gerard is elusive as well as powerful. He can bribe his way to people who disapprove of my work." He shook his head. "Had I yelled for the police that night, held Gerard, done something, I might have known peace over the years. But 1 didn't. And there was no way I could atone other than to fight the hatred that had driven Gerard to kill those girls."

  Hood said, "You had no contact with Gerard, but did you hear anything about him over the years?"

  "No," said Hausen. "He vanished, just like your Nancy. There were rumors that he had gone into business with his father, but when the old man died Gerard closed down the airbus parts factory that had been so profitable for so many years. He was rumored to have become the power behind many executive boards without ever being on any, but I don't know that for a fact."

  Hood had other questions for the man, questions about the elder Dupre's business, about the identities of the girls, and about what Op-Center could do to help Hausen with what was shaping up as a serious case of blackmail. But his attention was snatched away by a soft voice that called him from behind.

  "Paul!"

  Hood turned, and the glow of Hamburg seemed to dim. Hausen and the trees and the city and the years themselves disappeared as the tall, slender, graceful angel walked toward him. As he found himself once again standing in front of a movie theater, waiting for Nancy.

  Waiting for the girl who finally had arrived.

  THIRTY

  Thursday, 4:22 P.M., Hanover, Germany

  Bob Herbert had not phoned Mike Rodgers when he first saw the white van.

  It had appeared in his rearview mirror while he drove around the city, trying to figure out what to do. He'd paid little attention to the vehicle as he tried to come up with some way of getting information about the kidnapped girl. Though the straightforward approach had failed, he'd been thinking that bribery might work.

  When Herbert turned off Herrenhauser Strasse onto a side street and the van turned as well, he gave it a second look. In the front and back of the van were faces wearing ski masks. Glancing at the map and speeding up, Herbert took a few sharp turns just to make sure the van was following him. It was. Someone must have watched him go and sent the goon platoon after him. As the city of Hanover darkened with the fast-falling night, Herbert phoned Op-Center. Alberto put him through to Mike Rodgers.

  That was when Herbert asked for fast help or a short prayer.

  "What's wrong?" Rodgers asked.

  "I had a run-in with some neo-Nazi back at a beer house," Herbert said. "Now they're after my ass."

  "Where are you?"

  "I'm not sure," Herbert said. He looked around. "I see lime trees, a lot of gardens, a lake." A large sign flashed by. "Thank you, God. I'm at a place called Welfengarten."

  "Bob," said Rodgers, "Darrell's here. He's got the phone number of the local police. Can you write it down and call?"
/>
  Herbert reached into his shirt pocket for a pen. He doodled on the dashboard to get the ink flowing. "Shoot," he said.

  But before he could write it down, the van rammed his fender. As the car bolted forward, the shoulder strap of the seatbelt tore into his chest. Herbert swerved to avoid a car in front of him.

  "Shit!" he yelled. He drove around the car and sped up. "Listen, General, I've got troubles."

  "What?"

  "These guys are ramming me. I'm going to pull over before I cream a pedestrian. Tell the Landespolizei I'm in a white Mercedes."

  "No, Bob, don't stop!" Rodgers yelled. "If they get you into the van, we're screwed!"

  "They're not trying to kidnap me!" Herbert shouted back. "They're trying to kill me!"

  The van smashed into him again on the left rear side. The right side of the car hopped onto the sidewalk, where Herbert nearly clipped a man walking his terrier. Herbert managed to swerve back onto the road, though his right front fender clipped a parked car. The collision tore the fender down and caused it to scrape noisily against the asphalt.

  He stopped. Afraid the chrome might rend his tire, Herbert threw the car into reverse to try to rip the fender free. It came loose with a slow groan and a loud squeal, then clattered to the street.

  Herbert looked in his side mirror to make sure he could pull away again. The scene was surreal. Pedestrians were running and cars were now racing past. And before he could safely return to the now-disordered flow of traffic, the van pulled up beside him, on the left. The figure in the passenger's seat faced him. He stuck a submachine gun from the open window and trained it on the car.

  He fired.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Thursday, 4:33 P.M., Hamburg, Germany

  Dressed in a short black skirt and jacket, with a white blouse and pearls, Nancy looked as if she were walking from a mirage. Hazy, slow, rippling.

  Or maybe she looked that way because of the tears in Hood's eyes.

  He winced, shook his head, made fists, felt a thousand different emotions with every step she took.

  It is you. That was the first.

  It was followed by, Why did you do it, damn you?

  Then, You're more breathtaking than I remembered....

  And, What about Sharon? I should leave, but I can't.

  Finally, Go away. I don't need this....

  But he did need it. And as she drifted toward him, he filled his eyes with her. He allowed his heart to fill with the old love, his loins to fill with the old lust, his mind to fill with the precious memories.

  Hausen said, "Herr Hood?"

  Hausen's voice seemed muffled and soft, as though it were coming from a hole far, far below him.

  "Are you all right?"

  "I'm not sure," Hood replied. His own voice seemed to be coming from that hole.

  Hood didn't take his eyes off Nancy. She didn't wave, she didn't speak. She didn't look away and she didn't break her poised, sensual stride.

  "It's Nancy," Hood finally told his companion.

  "How did she find you here?" Hausen wondered aloud.

  The woman arrived. Hood couldn't even imagine what he looked like to her. He was shocked, open-mouthed, teary, his head moving slowly from side to side. Hood was no silver knight, he was sure of that.

  There was a vague look of amusement on Nancy's face--the right side of her mouth was pulled up slightly--but it changed quickly to that wide, knee-weakening smile he knew so well.

  "Hello," she said quietly.

  The voice had matured, along with the face. There were lines to the sides of the blue eyes, on her once-smooth forehead, along the upper lip--that beautifully curved upper lip, which rested on a slightly bee-stung lower lip. But they were not detracting, those lines. To the contrary. Hood found them almost unbearably sexy. They said that she had lived, loved, fought, survived, and was still vital and unbowed and alive.

  She also looked fitter than she had ever been. Her five-foot-six-inch body looked sculpted, and Hood could imagine her having gotten into aerobics or jogging or swimming. Gotten into it and throttled it, made it do exactly what she wanted to her body. She had that kind of discipline, that kind of will.

  Obviously, he thought with a flash of bitterness. She was able to walk out on me.

  Nancy was no longer wearing the cherry-red lipstick he remembered so well. She had on a calmer watermelon color. She was also wearing a hint of sky-blue eye shadow--that was new--and small diamond earrings. He fought a nearly losing battle to put his arms around her, to crush her to him from cheek to thighs.

  He settled for: "Hello, Nancy." It seemed an inadequate thing to say after all this time, though it beat the epithets and accusations which came to mind. And as one who had been martyred by love, he found the saintly minimalism of it appealing.

  Nancy's eyes shifted to Hood's right. She offered Hausen her hand.

  "Nancy Jo Bosworth," she said to Hausen.

  "Richard Hausen," he said.

  "I know," she replied. "I recognized you."

  Hood didn't hear the rest of the exchange. Nancy Jo Bosworth, he repeated. Nancy was the kind of woman who would have hyphenated her name. So she isn't married. Hood felt his soul begin to glow with joy, then burn with guilt. He told himself, But you are.

  Hood jerked his head toward Hausen. He was conscious of moving it like that, of jerking it. Otherwise, it wouldn't have budged. Facing Hausen, Hood saw a look of compassion bordering on sadness in the man's eyes. Not for himself but for Hood. And he appreciated the empathy. If Hood weren't careful here, he was going to ruin a lot of lives.

  Hood said to Hausen, "I wonder if you would give me just a minute."

  "Certainly," Hausen said. "I'll see you back in my office."

  Hood nodded. "What you were saying a moment ago," he said. "We'll talk more. I can help with that."

  "Thank you," the German said. After snapping a polite bow at the woman, he walked away.

  Hood looked from Hausen to Nancy. He didn't know what she saw in his eyes, but what he saw in hers was deadly. The softness and desire were still there, still an electric combination, still damn near irresistible.

  "I'm sorry," she said.

  "It's all right," Hood said. "He and I were nearly finished."

  The woman smiled. "Not about this."

  Hood's neck and cheeks went red. He felt like an ass.

  Nancy touched his face. "There was a reason I left the way I did," she said.

  "I'm sure there was," Hood said, recovering slightly. "You always had reasons for everything you did." He put his hand on hers and moved it back to her side. "How did you find me?"

  "I had to return papers to the hotel," she said. "The doorman told me a 'Paul' had been looking for me, and that he was with Deputy Foreign Minister Hausen. I called Hausen's office and came right over."

  "Why?" Hood asked.

  She laughed. "God, Paul, there are a dozen good reasons. To see you, to apologize, to explain--but mostly to see you. I missed you terribly. I followed your career in Los Angeles as best I could. I was very proud of what you'd done."

  "I was driven," he said.

  "I could see that, which is funny. I never thought of you as ambitious that way."

  "I wasn't driven by ambition," he said, "but by despair. I kept busy so that I wouldn't become Heathcliff, sitting up at Wuthering Heights waiting to die. That's what you did to me, Nancy. You left me sick and so confused that all I wanted to do was find you, make whatever was wrong right again. I wanted you so badly that if you'd run off with another man I would have envied him, not hated him."

  "It wasn't another man," she said.

  "It doesn't matter. Can you begin to understand that level of frustration?"

  Now Nancy blushed slightly. "Yes," she said, "because I felt it too. But I was in terrible trouble. If I'd stayed, or if I told you where I'd gone ..."

  "What?" Hood demanded. "What would have happened? How could anything have been worse than what did happen?" His voice cracked a
nd he had to fight back sobs. He half-turned from her.

  "I'm sorry," Nancy said more emphatically.

  She came closer and stroked his cheek again. This time he didn't remove her hand.

  "Paul, I stole the blueprints for a new chip my company was going to make and sold them to an overseas firm. In exchange for the blueprints, I got a ton of money. We would have been married, we would have been rich, and you would have been a deadly-great politician."

  "Is that what you think I wanted?" Hood asked. "To be successful on someone else's efforts?"

  Nancy shook her head. "You never would have known. 1 wanted you to be able to run for office without worrying about money. I felt that you could do great things, Paul, if you didn't have to worry about special interest groups and campaign contributions. I mean, you could get away with that sort of thing then."

  "I can't believe you did that."

  "I know. That's why I didn't tell you. And after everything fell apart, that's one reason 1 still couldn't tell you. On top of losing you, 1 didn't want your scorn." She said, "You could be pretty judgmental about things illegal in those days. Even little things. Remember how upset you were when I got that parking ticket outside the Cinerama Dome when we saw Rollerball? The ticket you'd warned me I'd get?"

  "I remember," Hood said. Of course I remember, Nancy. I remember everything we did....

  She lowered her hand, turned away. "Anyway, I did get found out somehow. A friend--you remember Jessica."

  Hood nodded. He could still see those pearls she was always wearing, smell her Chanel, as if she were standing right beside him.

  "Jess was working late," Nancy said, "and as I was getting ready to meet you at the movies she phoned to tell me two FBI agents had been there. She said the men were on their way to question me. I only had time to gather up my passport, some clothes, and my Bank-Americard, write you that short note, and get the hell out of my apartment." She looked down. "Out of the country."

  "Out of my life," Hood said. He pressed his lips together tightly. He wasn't sure he wanted Nancy to continue. Each word made him suffer, tortured him with the blighted hopes of a twenty-year-old man in love.