“Viktor?”
“Lugo,” Von Holden’s voice said.
“I have him. He’s walking east. Going into the Tiergarten.”
Von Holden was still in his office in the apartment on Sophie-Charlottenstrasse. He was on his feet talking into his two-way radio, unable to believe his good luck.
“Still alone?”
“Yes.” Viktor’s voice was crystal clear through the radio’s tiny speaker.
“The fool.”
“Instructions?”
“Follow him. I will be there in five minutes.”
100
NOBLE HUNG up and looked at McVey. “Still nothing from Cadoux. Nor is there an answer at his confidential number in Lyon.”
Disturbed and frustrated, McVey looked to Remmer, who was on his third cup of black coffee in the last forty minutes. They’d been over the guest list twenty times and, despite the handful of names Bad Godesberg still had been unable to trace, had found nothing more than they had the first time they went over it. Maybe somewhere among those missing people they’d find a key, maybe they wouldn’t. It was McVey’s sense they should be concentrating on what they had as opposed to what they didn’t, and he asked Remmer to see if they could get a more comprehensive breakdown on the guests that had already been identified. Maybe it wasn’t who the people were or what they did, maybe, like Klass and Halder, it had to do with their families or their backgrounds, something more titan was immediately apparent.
Perhaps they hadn’t had enough to go on to begin with, to make the process work and uncover the big rock with tile red
“Let’s take the Klass/Halder situation and point it at Cadoux.” McVey was sitting in a chair with his feet up on one of the twin beds. “Could he have had a father, brother, cousin, whatever—who might have been Nazis or Nazi sympathizers during the war?”
“Did you ever hear of Ajax?” Remmer asked.
Noble looked up. “Ajax was a network of French police who worked with the Resistance during the Occupation. After the war they discovered only five percent of its members actually resisted. Most of them were smuggling for the Vichy government.”
“Cadoux’s uncle was a judicial cop. A member of Ajax in Nice. After the war he was relieved of duty following a purge of Nazi collaborators,” Remmer said.
“What about his father, was he in Ajax too?”
“Cadoux’s father died the year after he was born.”
“You’re saying his uncle raised him,” McVey said, then sneezed.
“Correct.”
McVey stared off, then got up and walked across the room. “Is that what this is all about, Manny? Nazis? Is Scholl a Nazi? Is Lybarger?” Coming back, he picked the guest list from the bed. “Are all these wealthy, educated, prominent people—a new breed of German Nazi?”
Just then the light on the fax machine went on. There was a whirring sound and the paper rolled out. Remmer picked it off the machine and read it.
“There is no birth record for an Elton Lybarger in Essen in 1933 or bracketing years. They are checking further.” Remmer read on, then looked up. “Lybarger’s castle in Zurich.”
“What about it?”
“It’s owned by Erwin Scholl.”
Osborn had no idea what he was going to do when he got to the Grand Hotel Berlin. The thing with Albert Merriman in Paris had been different. He’d had time to plan, to think out a course of action while Jean Packard tracked Merriman down. The obvious question now, as he walked a lighted pathway that cut through the dark lawns and trees of Tiergarten, was threefold—how to get Scholl alone, how to make him talk, what to do afterward.
Imagining what a man in Scholl’s position must be like, it was safe to assume he would have an entourage of assistants and hangers-on, and at least one bodyguard, maybe more. That meant getting him alone would be extremely difficult, if not impossible.
That aside, assuming he did get him alone, what would make Scholl reveal what he wanted revealed? Say what he wanted him to say? Scholl, as Diedrich Honig had professed, with or without lawyers, would deny that he ever heard of Albert Merriman, Osborn’s father or any of the others. Succinylcholine might work, as it had on Merriman, but he had no allies in Berlin to help him get it. For an instant his mind went to Vera. How she was, where she was. Why any of this had to be. As quickly he put it away. He had to keep his concentration on Scholl. Nothing else.
They could see him ahead of them, maybe two hundred yards. He was still alone, walking on a path that, in a few moments, would take him to the edge of the park near Brandenburg Gate.
“How do you want to do it?” Viktor asked.
“I want to look him in the eyes,” Von Holden said.
Osborn glanced at his watch: 10:35.
Would Schneider still be hunting for him or would he have already reported him missing to Remmer? If he had, McVey would have alerted the Berlin police and he would have to be on the lookout for them as well. He had no passport and McVey might well let them throw him in jail just to keep him out of the way.
Abruptly the thought came that maybe that wasn’t so. And with it the notion that he could have been wrong about the other thing, too. He was as tired as the rest of them. Maybe his worry that McVey would leave him behind when they went after Scholl was just that. He’d sought out McVey’s help in the first place and come this far with him. Why was he turning his back on him now and trying to do everything alone? It was all coming in a rush. His emotions running away with him as they had for almost thirty years. He was too close to the end to let them ruin everything now. Didn’t he understand that? He’d wanted to be strong and take his responsibility, his love for his father, into his own hands and end it. But this wasn’t the way, he didn’t have the tools or the experience to do it alone, not with somebody like Scholl. He’d realized that in Paris. Why didn’t he now?
Suddenly he felt disoriented and terribly confused. What had been so decisive and purposeful such a short time before now seemed filmy, even vague, as if it were in a distant past. He had to stop his mind from working. For even a little while, he had to not think.
Looking around, he tried to settle on the reality of where he was. It was still cold but the drizzle had ended. The park was deserted and dark and filled with trees. Only the lighted pathways and tall buildings in the distance assured him he was in the city and not the deep woods. Looking back, he saw that he had just crossed a place where five pathways came together in a kind of hub. Which had he come down? Which was he on now?
A few feet away was a park bench, and he walked over to it and sat down. He would give himself a few moments for his mind to clear and then decide what to do next. The cold air felt clean and good, and he breathed it in deeply. Absently, he put his hands in his jacket pockets to warm them. When he did, his right hand touched the automatic. It was like an object stuffed away long ago and forgotten. Just then, something made him look up.
A man was approaching. His collar turned up, he walked slightly hunched to the side, as if he had some sort of physical impairment. As he got closer, Osborn realized that he was taller than he looked, trim, with broad shoulders and close-cropped hair. He was only a few feet from him when he lifted his head and their eyes met.
