by Bill Walker
“I’m assumin’ you wish to avoid any contact with Customs and the like?”
She nodded. “You know this harbor well?”
“Like the back of me hand.”
“Then where would you suggest.”
Nye cracked a lopsided grin, the pipe still clenched in his teeth. “Well, now, Missy.... If I was not wanting any unexpected greetings, as it were, I would pull in over beyond that quay.” He pointed to an area of warehouses swathed in shadow. “Not likely to be seen there. And if you were, it’ll be by the sort who know to keep their bleedin’ holes shut.”
The old man was right. There was no way they could approach the ferry pier without being seen and apprehended. And even with passports, they couldn’t risk being detained or spotted by someone with a darker agenda. The choice was clear.
“All right, then,” Michael said. “Let’s do it.”
The old captain’s eyes gleamed as he put the engine in gear and goosed the throttle forward. Molly’s Revenge nosed into the swell and chugged toward the darkened warehouses.
The Daimler kept its distance from the little Ford Escort with ease, but Mueller had to admire the old girl’s nerve behind the wheel. She not only didn’t drive like an old lady, but took risks, swerving around slower drivers in a fashion that would have given younger drivers pause. He smiled, noticing the beads of sweat on the back of his driver’s neck. For once the fat slob was earning his meager pay. He was about to make a comment when his portable phone chirped.
Made from microelectronics years ahead of the consumer markets in the West, it operated on a new “cellular” principle, and also included a scrambler chip that could be coded to match an identically coded mate. Mueller pulled it out from his coat and flipped it open, turning it on.
“Ja,” he said, his eyes narrowing as Karl’s voice buzzed in his ear. His mouth curled into a cold smile. “I know, they took some fishing boat to Ostend.”
“That’s the problem,” Karl said, sounding tired and frustrated. “I just received a call from one of our French people. Thorley and the girl were seen getting off at Calais.”
“Calais?”
“Ja. I believe they will be headed for Bonn—to the university.”
Mueller drew in a sharp breath. “Jarmann.”
“Ja. He’s the most logical one to reach.”
“Ausgezeichnet! For once I am glad the old fool insisted on staying put in that decadent institution. What’s the situation with the others on the list?”
Momentary static blocked out part of what Karl was saying. “...and the verdammt Russians found von Arnwolf.”
Icy fingers gripped Mueller’s heart. “What happened?”
“The safe house was raided. He tried to run—”
Mueller dropped the phone into his lap and rubbed the bridge of his nose, his entire body trembling with rage. Karl’s voice continued to buzz through the earpiece, but he didn’t need to hear any more. He could visualize the entire scene in his mind. The old man tottering down the cobbled street, his arms outstretched in panic, the staccato rattle of machine gunfire, the blood pooling in the gutter, eyes glazed by death. Another opportunity gone forever.
Mueller snatched up the phone, his lips curling in contempt. “Karl, I want you to listen to me very carefully. You are to make sure that Thorley makes it to Jarmann. Use whatever means necessary to get there ahead of them. Charter a plane if you have to. I will take care of what is to occur on this end and then make my way to Ostend. Verstehen Sie?”
Karl’s reply came through entirely free of static: “Ja, Comrade General, I understand.”
It was nearly dawn when they reached the car rental agency, occupying one of a dozen identical cubicles set into the middle of a giant parking lot clogged with vehicles. After arranging for their car in halting French, Michael used the men’s room while Erika went to fetch the car, a late model Peugeot 505. He washed up, trying to avoid the haggard image that stared out at him from the spotted mirror.
Outside, he found the Peugeot idling at the curb. Erika sat in the passenger seat hunched forward, her ear cocked toward the radio blasting a news report. She flipped it off and leaned back.
“The bastards have killed three more on the list since I left Germany. That leaves only one.”
“Who?” Michael asked, buckling the seat belt and adjusting the seat back to relieve his cramped legs.
“Ludwig Jarmann,” she replied, shaking her head.
“Where do we find him?”
“University of Bonn, College of Geopolitics. From here it should take us about four to five hours.”
Michael nodded and threw the car into gear.
“Geopolitics,” he said, laughing humorlessly. “I wonder if the Russians appreciate the irony.”
They pulled away from the curb and shot out onto the main road. A moment later, back in the parking lot, a midnight-blue Citroen slithered out onto the road and followed in their wake.
Mueller smiled when Lillian’s car pulled up to the front entrance of the Dorchester Hotel. The valet opened her door and she strode through the glass doors, disappearing into the lobby.
“It would appear that our widow is merrier than we thought,” Mueller said, chuckling.
Franz joined his laughter. “What next, Comrade General?”
“Let’s give them a moment. It may well be their last.”
Lillian fought the impulse to flee the hotel back to the safety of her car and, ultimately, the seclusion of Woodhaven. It was a temptation as seductive as any that beguiled the ancient Christian saints. The difference was that her sin would not be the return to the safety of her home, but the retreat from a confrontation she dreaded.
Steeling herself, she crossed the elegant lobby with its overstuffed furniture and priceless objects d’art, her knees feeling like rubber. She felt every eye on her, even though logic and her own empirical observations belied it.
Reaching the bank of elevators, she entered one that stood open and pushed the button for the penthouse, her throat going dry when the doors hissed shut and the elevator shot upwards with stomach wrenching swiftness. The floor numbers swept by, each one announced by a cheery “ding” that grated on her.
The penthouse floor, unlike the others, was decorated as if it were an extension of the ornate lobby: Brass sconces spaced every few yards, cast a muted amber glow on the beige-colored walls. Expensive paintings took up the spots in between, making it appear much like a conservative art gallery or museum. The carpet, a luxurious Wilton pile, squished under her feet when she moved toward the door at the end of the hall. A hulking figure stood guard in front of it, half-shrouded in shadow, his hands clasped in front of him.
The guard stared at her, looking puzzled that a prim-looking elderly woman would be standing there in front of him. She met his gaze, refusing to let his grim, determined glare intimidate her.
“Tell him I am here,” she said.
If the man was puzzled before, he was now astounded to see this old lady speaking idiomatic Russian with no accent. He hesitated only a moment before raising his arm and speaking into a radio. Seconds later the door flew open and another giant KGB man beckoned for Lillian to enter. She followed him into an enormous sitting room that looked out onto a breathtaking view of the London skyline. She found Pavel Hedeon standing in front of the window puffing on a Cuban cigar.
“Why have you come, Svetlana? You know it is not safe for you to be seen with me.” He had not turned from the window to look at her, and that hurt and angered her. She moved toward him, measuring her words.
“You promised me, Pavel. You promised me that no harm would come to him.”
Hedeon whirled to face her. “And I have kept my promise! No harm has come to him.”
“He’s been shot at and nearly killed, twice!” She trembled, hating herself for showing what Pavel would consider a weakness.
“That is the fault of the East Germans!” he said, extinguishing the cigar in a marble bucket of sand. “Those
jackals yearn for reunification with the decadent West. They betray the revolution.”
“Blast the bloody revolution! I don’t care anymore!” She advanced toward him, coming to within arm’s length of him. “You are responsible for him. Or had you forgotten?”
Hedeon’s anger seemed to leak from him, like sand from a broken hourglass. “No,” he muttered. “I have not forgotten.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
Hedeon grabbed her by the shoulders, his sausage-thick fingers caressing her. “What I must. There is too much at stake, my dear.” He looked past her toward the KGB man who’d let her into the suite and motioned for him to leave. Lillian heard the door shut behind him. Hedeon turned to face her, his fierce eyes boring into hers. “Please, you must let me handle this my way. It is almost over. There is only one of the Hitlerite conspirators left.”
The feeling rose up in her again, the nearly uncontrollable urge to flee. Instead, she fell into his arms, her lips burning against his as fiercely now as they had the first time over forty years before. A wave of passion overwhelmed her, and she moaned when he caressed her jaw line in that special way of his. Hedeon broke the kiss after uncountable moments, leaving her dazed, her lips tingling. “Oh, Pavel, it’s been so long. I didn’t know if I could bear it. When will it all end?”
He tilted her head up with his hand. “Soon, my love, soon. After the loose ends are cleaned up, we are sending you home.”
Lillian stumbled back, her world rocking. “W—what?”
“You have been of great service to the Motherland, Ninotchka. It is time you came home to the honors that are rightfully yours.”
“B—but my life is here.... Everything I know, everything I love—is here....”
“Everything? How do you think it has been for me, my love? I sacrificed a fiancée.” He moved to embrace her once more and Lillian stopped him with an outstretched arm and burning gaze.
“And I sacrificed a husband!”
“Surely you did not love that royalist swine!”
“He was good to me.... And the son he thought was his.... All these years, Pavel. Alone. It’s been so hard. And now this. Don’t ask me to sacrifice our son, as well. I won’t do it. The Motherland isn’t worth it.”
Hedeon nodded, saying nothing. He walked back to the window, clasping his hands behind his back. “Never fear, Ninotchka.... The time for sacrifices is almost over....”
A commotion in the next room made them both turn toward the door. Sounds of a door being kicked in followed by the muffled coughs of silenced pistols galvanized Hedeon, who headed for a credenza and removed a Makarov pistol from the drawer. Quickly, but without a trace of panic, he removed the magazine, checked to see it was loaded, slapped it back in, then pulled back the slide, letting it snap back with a resounding clack. He turned to Lillian, motioning her to follow. “There is a back way! Come!”
The door exploded inward before she could move and Mueller and Franz entered, their pistols held at the ready. They were dressed in dark civilian clothes but, to Lillian’s eye, there was something decidedly “military” in the way they carried themselves and handled their weapons. Mueller smiled, revealing white even teeth. His eyes, however, held no warmth. “Guten Abend, Comrade,” he said, his voice edged with sarcasm. “It seems we meet at a propitious moment.”
Hedeon wasted no time. He lifted the Makarov and fired, the shot going wild. The slug buried itself in the thick wood molding near the ceiling. Before he could get off another, Franz fired, hitting Hedeon in the hand and sending the pistol flying. Lillian screamed and made a move toward Hedeon. She stopped herself when the Stasi man’s pistol moved her way.
Mueller’s expression turned to contempt. “I thought you would be smarter than that, old friend.”
Hedeon glared at him, his one good hand holding the ruined one. Blood patted the expensive carpet.
“They should have purged swine like you long ago, Gruppenführer Müller!”
“So, you know....” A smile spread across Mueller’s face.
“We have known since the beginning. You don’t think that phony police identity of yours fooled us for one minute, did you? We had records of everyone in the SS. But you were useful in the beginning, but now—”
“But now, I know where all the bodies are buried, Comrade.” Mueller turned to Franz, indicating Lillian and Hedeon with his pistol. “Take them to the safe house. Wait for my call.”
Franz nodded, then pushed Lillian and Hedeon toward the door. When they were gone, Mueller let his eyes roam over the opulent apartment, a scowl on his face. “And he has the audacity to call them decadent.”
Turning on his heels, he strode from the apartment, shutting the door with a resounding slam.
Opposite the Dorchester, two men sat in a black Astin-Martin, their weary eyes trained on the door and the Daimler limousine idling at the curb. They sat up straighter when Lillian, Hedeon, Mueller, and Franz exited the hotel and clambered into the waiting car. Scant seconds later, the car pulled into traffic and streaked away.
The passenger, a middle-aged man with a hangdog face and premature gray hair, picked up a walkie-talkie, while his companion, a tall man with jug ears, started the car and eased out into the stream of traffic.
“Hutchins, here,” the passenger said into the walkie-talkie. “They’ve just left. They’ve got Hedeon and Thorley’s mother.”
“Jolly good,” came the answer swathed in static. “Stay with them, no matter what you have to do. Is that clear?”
Hutchins started to nod, then stopped himself. “Right. We’ll stay with them. Over.”
Back at MI6 headquarters, Roger MacKinnon stood over the radio, frowning. “What on earth is Thorley’s mother doing there?” he asked, his voice rising in annoyance.
Standing next to him, Sir Robert Sandon suppressed a smile, his heart dancing a jig. For once it seemed things might be going his way. He turned to MacKinnon and fixed him with a sober gaze. “Welles was looking for a sleeper,” he said, drawing out the moment. “It seems we’ve found her.”
The look of shock on MacKinnon’s face was more than he could have hoped.
Chapter Thirty-One
“We’re here,” Erika said, shaking him awake. Michael groaned and stretched, feeling a jab in his neck from a kink that had settled in over the past hour while he’d slept. He remembered going through the border at Aachen and not much more after that. Rubbing the fog from his eyes, he squinted out through the windscreen at the Bonn skyline cowering under an umbrella of static gray clouds pregnant with moisture.
A small city at the end of World War Two, it had greatness thrust upon it when it became the seat of the newly created democratic West German government. Chosen because of its academic and bureaucratic tradition, as well as for its distance from the divided city of Berlin, now tainted by its recent past and its encirclement by the Deutsche Demokratisch Republik, Bonn had the look of a city suffering from rapid unplanned growth.
Ugly glass and steel monstrosities built over the past four decades sprouted like mushrooms between venerable nineteenth century buildings. And sitting amongst this architectural miasma was the University of Bonn, itself a victim of explosive growth.
“How much further?” Michael asked, massaging the back of his neck.
Erika consulted a map and gestured through the windscreen. “The College of Geopolitical Science is half a kilometer west of here.”
She took the next right turn and brought the Peugeot to an ultra-modern ten-story structure that resembled a child’s aborted attempt at using an Erector set. An example of the new “Deconstructionist” school of design, it looked as if the construction crew had gone on strike and never come back. Erika shut off the engine and Michael became aware of the street noise around them. Just after noon, traffic was heavy, everyone impatient to get to their luncheon appointments. As if Erika had read his mind, she said, “Classes don’t start again until one. I suggest you go back to sleep.”
He shook his head. “Too keyed-up, now. Besides, I still think you’re daft. Jarmann would have to be insane to remain here in the open.”
“Perhaps that is precisely why he is still alive.”
“Maybe,” Michael shrugged. “But now that he is the only one left who can harm them, he might not be so secure.”
“I don’t want to argue, I’m too tired.” She shut her eyes and Michael fought off the urge to kiss her.
“I saw a café around the corner where we turned. You want some tea?” he asked.
She grunted her assent without opening her eyes, and Michael stepped from the car. The dampness in the air clung to him, in spite of the chill breeze blowing in from the west. Turning up the collar of his tweed sport coat, he walked back to the corner and into the tiny café two doors down. His nose was immediately assaulted by the seductive aromas of espresso and pastry browning in the oven. His mouth watered. A young woman stood behind the counter reading a newspaper and had all the earmarks of a student: Leather clothes and cadaverous makeup. She looked up at his approach and smiled.
“Two teas, bitte,” he said, feeling self-conscious at his British accent.
If the girl noticed, she pretended not to care; she went about putting two tea bags into Styrofoam cups, then adding the hot water.
“Could I also have two rolls?” he asked, pointing to the trays of pastries. The girl nodded and grabbed for a paper bag and a sheet of waxed paper. He was about to add milk and sugar to the two teas when his eyes flicked across the newspaper. The German headlines and the text meant nothing to him, but his face staring out from the bottom half of the front page nearly made him spill the hot beverage all over the counter.
