“Yes—” Osborn said. “I know what it is. . . .”
He’d seen it before. In Geneva. In London. And in Paris. It was Vera Monneray’s passport case.
106
OSBORN WAS not the only distraught man in Berlin.
Waiting for Von Holden in his office at the Sophie-Charlottenstrasse apartment, Cadoux was an anxious wreck. He’d spent two very troubled hours complaining to anyone who would listen—about German coffee, about a why he couldn’t get a French-language newspaper, about nothing at all; every bit of it disguising his growing concern over Avril Rocard. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since she should have completed her assignment at the farmhouse outside Nancy and reported back to him, I yet he had had no word.
Four times he’d called her apartment in Paris and four times there’d been no answer. After a sleepless night he’d telephoned Air France to see if she had checked in for her early flight from Paris to Berlin. When that proved negative, he started to fall apart. Trained terrorist, murderer and professional policeman; from his position within Interpol, the man assigned to coordinate security for Erwin Scholl anywhere he traveled in the world—and had for more than thirty years—inside, Cadoux was a prisoner of the heart. Avril Rocard was his life.
He finally risked a phone trace and made contact with an operative inside the French Secret Service who confirmed three Secret Service agents and a woman had been found dead at the Nancy farmhouse, but more detail was not available. Literally frantic, Cadoux tried the one last, and in retrospect, perhaps his most obvious, option. He telephoned the Hotel Kempinski.
To his enormous relief, Avril Rocard had checked in at 7:15 that morning, arriving by a cab from Bahnhof Zoo, Berlin’s main railway station. Hanging up, Cadoux reached for a cigarette. Blowing out the smoke, he smiled, he beamed, he pounded on the desk with his fist. Then, thirty seconds later, at 10:59 exactly, and with Von Holden still in his meeting with Scholl, Cadoux picked up the phone and placed a call to Avril Rocard’s room at the Hotel Kempinski. As luck would have it, the line was busy.
McVey was using it to call Scholl. The first part of their ‘conversation had been formal and polite. They discussed their mutual friendship with Cardinal O’Connel, the Berlin weather compared to Southern California, and the irony of being in the city at the same time. Then they got ground to the reason for McVey’s call.
“It’s something I’d rather discuss in person, Mr. Scholl. I wouldn’t want it to be misinterpreted.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“Let’s just say, it’s personal.”
“Detective, my calendar for the day is full. Isn’t this something that could wait until my return to Los Angeles?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“How much time do you think it will require?”
“Half hour, forty minutes.”
“I see—”
“I do know you’re busy, and I appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Scholl. I understand you’ll be at the Charlottenburg Palace for a reception this evening. Why don’t we meet there beforehand? How is about sev—”
“I will meet you promptly at five o’clock at number 72 Hauptstrasse, in the Friedenau district. It’s a private residence. I’m sure you will be able to find it. Good morning, Detective.”
There was a click on the other end as Scholl hung up and looked at Louis Goetz and then to Von Holden, as both hung up extensions.
“That was what you wanted?”
“That was what I wanted,” Von Holden said.
107
EVEN THOUGH the call Cadoux had placed to Avril Rocard at the Hotel Kempinski had never rung through, the front desk, on orders from the BKA, had kept the caller on hold long enough for the federal police to trace the call.
Because of it, Osborn was once again in the company of Inspector Johannes Schneider. Only this time there was a second BKA inspector along. Littbarski, a beefy, balding, single father of two. The three were crammed into a tiny wooden booth in a crowded Kneipe, a tavern a half block away, drinking coffee and waiting as McVey, Noble and Remmer climbed the stairs to the apartment on Sophie-Charlottenstrasse.
A middle-aged woman with dyed red hair and wearing a small telephone headset, looking as if she’d come to the door from a switchboard, opened the door and Remmer, flashing a BKA I.D., introduced himself in German. Within the last hour someone had placed a call to Hotel Kempinski Berlin and they wanted to know who it was.
“I couldn’t tell you,” she said in German.
“Let’s find someone who can.”
The woman was hesitant. Everyone had gone to lunch, she said. Remmer told her they’d wait. And if she had a problem with that, they’d get a search warrant and come back. Suddenly the woman raised her head, as if she were listening to something distant. Then she looked back and smiled.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that we are very busy. This is the welcoming headquarters for a private party tonight at Schloss Charlottenburg. Many prominent people are coming and we are frying to coordinate everything. Several are staying at the Hotel Kempinski. It was probably I who called earlier. To make certain our guests had arrived and that everything was all right.”
“Which guest were you checking on?”
“I—I told you. There are several.”
“Name them.”
“I have to check my book.”
“Check it.”
She nodded and asked them to wait. Remmer said it would be better if they came in. Again the woman raised her head and looked off. “All right,” she said finally, and led them down a narrow hallway to a small desk in an alcove. Sitting down next to a multiline phone, she moved a small vase holding a wilting yellow rose and opened a three-ring binder. Turning a page marked Kempinski, she brusquely shoved it under Remmer’s nose for him to read for himself. Six of the guest names were on the Kempinski list, including Avril Rocard.
Letting Remmer handle the woman, McVey and Noble stepped back and looked around. To their left was another hallway. Halfway down and at the end were doors. Both were closed. Across was the apartment’s living room, where two women and a man sat at what looked like rented desks. One typed on a computer, the other two were working telephones. McVey stuck his hands in his pockets and tried to look bored.
“Somebody’s talking to her through that headset,” he said quietly, as if he were talking about the weather or the stock market. Noble glanced back at her in time to see her nod past Remmer toward the man in the living room working the telephones. Remmer followed her gaze, then walked over and showed him his I.D. They talked for several minutes and then Remmer came back to McVey and Noble.
“According to them, he was the one who called Avril Rocard’s room. Neither of them know where either Salettl or Lybarger are staying. The woman thinks they’ll go directly to Charlottenburg from the airport.”
“What time are they due to land?” Noble asked.
“She doesn’t know. Their job seems to be to take care of the guests and that’s all.”
“Who else is here, in the other rooms?”
“She says there are just the four of them.”
