The Holcroft Covenant

by Robert Ludlum

  Des gens assassinées! La tuerie!

  Helden swung into the street that passed the church rectory and fronted the entrance to the parking lot. She turned in and drove up beside the rented car. Holcroft looked in the rear seat. The Mi-Five man was angled back in the corner, still breathing, his eyes on Noel. He moved his hand, as if to draw Noel closer.

  "We're switching cars," said Holcroft "We'll get you to a doctor."

  "Listen ... to me first, you ass," whispered the Englishman. His eyes strayed to Helden. "Tell him."

  "Listen to him, Noel," she said.

  "What is it?"

  "Payton-Jones — you have the number?"

  Holcroft remembered. The name on the card given him by the middle-aged, gray-haired intelligence agent in London was Harold Payton-Jones. He nodded. "Yes."

  "Call him. . . . " The Mi-Five man coughed. "Tell him

  what happened ... everything."

  "You can tell him yourself," said Noel.

  "You're a piss ant. Tell Payton-Jones there's a complication we don't know about The man we thought was sent by the Tinamou, Von Tiebolt's man ..."

  "My brother's not the Tinamou," cried Helden.

  The agent looked at her through half-closed lids. "Maybe you're right, miss. I didn't think so before, but you may be. I only know that the man who followed you in the Fiat works for Von Tiebolt."

  "He followed us to protect us! To find out who was after Noel."

  Holcroft spun in the seat and stared at Helden. "You know about him?"

  "Yes," she replied. "Our lunch today was Johann's idea."

  "Thanks a lot."

  "Please. You don't understand these things. My brother does. I do."

  "Helden, I tried to trap that man! He was killed!"

  "What? Oh, my God

  "That's the complication," whispered the agent, speaking to NoeL "If Von Tiebolt's not the Tinamou, what is he? Why was his man shot? Those two men, why did they try to take her? Kill you? Who were they? This car . . . trace it." The Englishman gasped: Noel reached

  over the seat but the agent waved him away. "Just listen. Find out who they were, who owns this car. They're the complication."

  The Mi-Five man was barely able to keep bis eyes open now; his whisper could hardly be heard. It was obvious that he would die in moments. Noel leaned over the seat.

  "Would the complication have anything to do with a man named Peter Baldwin?"

  It was as though an electric shock had jolted the dying man. His eyelids sprang open; the pupils beneath came briefly back from death. "Baldwin? ..." The whisper echoed and was eerily plaintive.

  "He called me in New York," said Holcroft. "He told me not to do what I was doing, not to get involved. He said he knew things that no one else knew. He was killed an hour later."

  "He was telling the truth! Baldwin was telling the truth!" The agent's lips began to tremble; a trickle of blood emerged from the corner of his mouth. "We never believed him; he was trading off nothing! We were sure he was lying-----"

  "Lying about what?"

  The Mi-Five man stared at Noel; then, with effort, shifted his gaze to Helden. "There isn't time. ..." He struggled pathetically to look again at Holcroft. "You're clean. You must be ... you wouldn't have said what you just said. I'm going to trust you, both of you. Reach Pay-ton-Jones ... as fast as you can. Tell him to go back to the Baldwin file. Code Wolfsschanze. . . . It's Wolfsschanze."

  The agent's head fell forward. He was dead.

  22

  They sped north on the Paris highway as the late-afternoon sun washed the countryside with rays of orange and cold yellow. The winter sun was the same everywhere: It was a constant. And Holcroft was grateful for it,

  Code Wolfsschanze. It's Wolfsschanze.

  Peter Baldwin had known about Geneva. He had tried to tell MI Five, but the doubters in British Intelligence had not believed him.

  He was trading off nothing!

  What was he trading for? What was the bargain he sought? Who was Peter Baldwin?

  Who had been Peter Baldwin?

  Who was Von Tiebolt... Tennyson?

  // Von Tiebolfs not the Tinamou, what is he? Why was his man shot? Why did they try to take her? Kill you?

  Why?

  At least one problem was put to rest: John Tennyson was not the Tinamou. Whatever else the son of Wilhelm von Tiebolt was — and it might well be dangerous to Geneva — he was not the assassin. But then, who was he? What had he done to become involved with killers? Why were men after him — and, by extension, his sister?

  The questions kept Noel's mind from dwelling on the last hours. He could not think about them; he would explode if he did. Three men killed — one by him. Killed by gunfire in the back street of a remote French village during a carnival. Madness.

  "What do you think 'Wolfsschanze' stands for?" asked Helden.

  "I know what it stands for," he said.

  She turned, surprised.

  He told her — everything he knew about the survivors

  of Wolfsschanze. There was no point in concealing facts now. When he had finished, she was silent. He wondered if he had pushed her too far. Into a conflict she wanted no part of. She had said to him only a few days ago that if he did not do as she instructed, if he was not who he said he was, she would leave Paris and he would never find her. Would she do that now? Was the threat of Wolfsschanze the final burden she could not accept?

  "Are you afraid?" he asked.

  "That's a foolish question."

  "I think you know what I mean."

  "Yes." She leaned her head back on the seat "You want to know if I'll run away."

  "I guess that's it. Will you?"

  She did not reply for several moments; nor did he press her. When she spoke, there was the echoing sadness in her voice — so like her sister's and yet so different. "I can't run away any more than you can. Morality and fear aside, it's simply not practical, is it? They'd find us. They'd kill us."

  "That's pretty final."

  "It's realistic. Besides, I'm tired of running. I have no energy left for it. The Rache, the ODESSA, now Wolfsschanze. Three hunters who stalk each other as well as us. It's got to end. Herr Oberst is right about that."

  "I came to the same conclusion yesterday afternoon. It occurred to me that if it weren't for my mother, I'd be running with you."

  "Heinrich Clausen's son," said Helden reflectively.

  "And someone else's." He returned her look. "Do we agree? We don't get in touch with this Payton-Jones?"

  "We agree."

  "MI Five'll look for us. They have no choice. They had a man on us; they'll find out he was killed. There'll be questions."

  "Which we can't answer. We were followed; we did not follow."

  "I wonder who they were? The two men," he said.

  "The Rache, I would think. It's their style."

  "Or the ODESSA."

  "Possibly. But the German spoken by the one who took me was odd. The dialect wasn't recognizable. He was not a Münchner, and certainly not a Berliner! It was strange."

  "How do you mean?"

  "It was very guttural, but still soft, if that makes sense."

  "Not too much. Then you think they were from the Rache?"

  "Does it matter? We've got to protect ourselves from both. Nothing has changed. At least, not for me." She reached over and touched his arm. "I'm sorry for you, though."

  "Why?"

  "Because now you are running with us. You're one of the children now — die verwünschte Kinder. The damned. And you've had no training."

  "It seems to me I'm getting it in a hurry,"

  She withdrew her hand. "You should go to Berlin."

  "I know. We've got to move quickly. Kessler has to be reached and brought in; he's the last of the" — Holcroft paused — "the issue."

  She smiled sadly at the word. "There's you and my brother; you're both knowledgeable, both ready to move. Kessler must be made ready, too. . . . Zurich is the issue. And the
solution to so much."

  Noel glanced at her. It did not take much to perceive what she was thinking. Zurich meant resources beyond imagination; surely a part of them would be used to curb, if not eliminate, the fanatics of the ODESSA and the Rache. Holcroft knew that she knew he had witnessed their horrors for himself; a one-third vote was hers for the asking. Her brother would agree.

  "We'll make Zurich work," he said. "You can stop running soon. We can all stop."

  She looked at him pensively. Then she moved over on the seat next to him and put her hand through his arm and held it. She laid her head on his shoulder, her long blond hair falling over his jacket.

  "I called for you and you came to me," she said in her odd, floating voice. "We nearly died this afternoon. A man gave his life for us."

  "He was a professional," replied Noel. "Our lives may have been incidental to him. He was after information, after a man he thought could give it to him."

  "I know that. I've seen such men before, such professionals. But at the last, he was decent; many aren't.

  They sacrifice others too easily in the name of professionalism."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You're not trained; you would have done as he told you. You could have been used for bait, to draw fire. It would have been easier for him to let you take the bullets, and then me. I wasn't important to him. In the confusion he might have saved his own life and gotten his man. But he saved us."

  "Where shall we go in Paris?"

  "Not Paris," said Helden. "Argenteuil. There's a small hotel on the river. It's lovely."

  Noel raised his left hand from the wheel and let it fall on the hair that cascaded down his jacket "You're lovely," he said.

  "I'm frightened. The fear has to go away."

  "Argenteuil?" he mused. "A small hotel in Argenteuil. You seem to know a lot of places for someone who's been in France for only a few months."

  "You have to know where they don't ask questions. You're taught quickly; you learn quickly. Take the Billan court exit. Please hurry."

  Their room overlooked the Seine, with a small balcony beyond the glass doors directly above the river. They stood for a few minutes in the night air, his arm around her, both of them looking down at the dark waters. Neither spoke; comfort was in their touch.

  There was a knock on the door. Helden tensed; he smiled and reassured her.

  "Relax. While you were washing up I ordered a bottle of brandy."

  She returned his smile and breathed again. "You should really let me do that. Your French is quite impossible."

  "I can say 'Remy Martin,'" he said, releasing her. "Where I went to school it was the first thing we learned," He went inside toward the door.

  Holcroft took the tray from the waiter and stood for a moment watching Helden. She had closed the doors to the balcony and was staring out the windows at the night sky. She was a private woman, a lonely woman, and she was reaching out to him. He understood that

  He wished he understood other things. She was beautiful; it was the simple truth, and needed no elaboration. Nor could she be unaware of that beauty. She was highly intelligent, again an attribute so obvious no further comment was necessary. And beyond that intelligence she was familiar with the ways of her shadow world. She was street-smart in a larger sense, in an international sense; she moved swiftly, decisively. There had to have been dozens of times when she used sex to get an advantage, but he suspected it was used in cold calculation: Buyer beware, there is nothing but a body for you to take; my thoughts are mine; you'll share none of them.

  She turned from the glass doors; her eyes were soft, her expression warm and yet still distant, still observing. "You look like an impatient maitre d' waiting to escort me to my table."

  "Right this way, mademoiselle," said Noel, carrying the tray to the small bureau across the room and placing it on top. "Would the lady care for a table by the water?" He moved a small chaise in front of the glass doors and faced her, smiling and bowing. "If the lady would care to be seated, brandy will be served, and the fireworks will begin. The torchbearers on the boats await only your presence."

  "But where will you sit, my attractive garçon?"

  "At your feet, lady." He leaned over and kissed her, holding her shoulders, wondering if she would withdraw or push him away.

  Whatever he expected, he was not prepared for what happened. Her lips were soft and moist, parted as if swollen, moving against his, inviting him into her mouth. She reached up with both her hands and cupped his face, her fingers gently caressing his cheeks, his eyelids, his temples. Still her lips kept moving, revolving in desperate circles, pulling him into her. They stood together. He could feel her breasts pressed against his shirt, her legs against his, pushing into him, matching strength for strength, arousing him.

  Then a strange thing happened. She began to tremble; her fingers crept around his neck and dug into his flesh, holding him fiercely, as if she were afraid he might move away. He could hear the sobs that came from her throat, feel the convulsions that gripped her. He moved

  his hands to her waist and gently pulled his face from hers, forcing her to look at him.

  She was crying. She stared at him for a moment; pain was in her eyes, a hurt so deep Noel felt he was an intruder watching a private agony.

  "What is it? What's the matter?"

  "Make the fear go away," she whispered plaintively. She reached for the buttons on her blouse and undid them, exposing the swell of her breasts. "I can't be alone. Please, make it go away."

  He pulled her to him, cradling her head against his chest, her hair beneath his face soft and lovely, as she was soft and lovely.

  "You're not alone, Helden. Neither am I."

  They were naked beneath the covers, his arm around her, her head on his chest. With his free hand, he kept lifting the strands of her long blond hair, letting them fall to cover her face.

  "I can't see when you do that," she said, laughing.

  "You look like a sheep dog."

  "Are you my shepherd?"

  "I have a staff."

  "That's dreadful. You have a dirty mouth." She reached up with her index finger and tapped his lips. He caught her finger between his teeth and growled. "You can't frighten me," she whispered, raising her face above his, depressing his tongue playfully. "You're a cowardly lion. You make noises, but you won't bite."

  He took her hand. "Cowardly lion? The Wizard of Oz?"

  "Of course," she answered. "I loved The Wizard of Oz. I saw it dozens of times in Rio. It's where I began to learn English. I wanted so to be called Dorothy. I even named my little dog Toto."

  "It's hard to think of you as a little girl."

  "I was, you know. I didn't spring full flower. . . ." She stopped and laughed. She had raised herself above him; her breasts were in front of his face. His hand instinctively reached for the left nipple. She moaned and covered his hand, holding it where it was as she lowered herself back down on his chest. "Anyway, I was a little girl. There were times when I was very happy."

  "When?"

  "When I was alone. I always had a room to myself; mother made sure of that. It was always in the back of the house or the apartment; or, if we were in a hotel, it was separate, away from my brother and sister. Mother said I was the youngest and should not be disturbed by the hours they kept."

  "I imagine that could get pretty lonely...."

  "Oh, no! Because I was never alone. My friends were in my mind, and they would sit in chairs and on my bed and we'd talk. We would talk for hours, telling each other our secrets."

  "What about school? Didn't you have flesh-and-blood friends?"

  Helden was silent for a moment. "A few, not many. As I look back, I can't blame them. We were all children. We did as our parents told us to do. Those of us who had a parent left."

  "What did the parents tell them?"

  That I was a Von Tiebolt. The little girl with the silly first name. My mother was . . . well, my mother. I think they thought my stigma
was contagious."

  She may have been branded with a stigma, thought Noel, but her mother was not the cause of it. Maurice Graffs ODESSA had more important things on its mind. Millions upon millions siphoned off their beloved Reich to be used by traitors such as Von Tiebolt for a massive apology.

  "Things got better when you grew up, didn't they?"

  "Better? Certainly. You adjust, you mature, you understand attitudes you didn't as a child."

  "More friends?"

  "Closer ones, perhaps, not necessarily more. I was a poor mixer. I was used to being by myself; I understood why I was not included at parties and dinners. At least, not in the so-called respectable households. The years curtailed my mother's social activities, shall we say, but not her business interests. She was a shark; we were avoided by our own kind. And of course the Germans were never really accepted by the rest of Rio, not during those years."

  "Why not? The war was over."

  "But not the embarrassments. The Germans were a

  constant source of embarrassment then. Illegal monies, war criminals, Israeli hunters ... it went on for years."

  "You're such a beautiful woman, it's difficult to think of you ... let's say, isolated."

  Helden raised herself and looked at him. She smiled, and with her right hand pushed her hair back, holding it at the base of her neck. "I was very stern-looking, my darling. Hair straight, wrapped in a bun, large glasses and dresses always a size too large. You wouldn't have looked at me twice.... Don't you believe me?"

  "I wasn't thinking about that."

  "What then?"

  "You just called me 'my darling.'"

  She held his eyes. "Yes, I did, didn't I? It seemed quite natural. Do you mind?"

  He reached for her, his answer his touch.

  She sat back on the chaise, her slip serving as a negligee; she sipped the brandy. Noel was on the floor beside her, leaning against the small couch, his shorts and open shirt taking the place of a bathrobe. They held hands and watched the lights of the boats shimmering on the water.

  He turned his head and looked at her. "Feeling better?"