a guard-house and a gate out front, she had no idea.
“Thank you, Joanna. Everything is fine,” he said without looking up.
“Then, I will see you a little later.” She smiled caringly.
Lybarger nodded absently and continued reading. Smiling pleasantly at the pig-faced bodyguard, Joanna turned and left.
* * *
Von Holden was alone in a dark paneled study when she came in and closed the door quietly behind her. He was sitting in a chair with his back to her, talking in German on the telephone. The room was dark compared to the bright sunshine in the yard outside. The grass was a vibrant green that caught and displayed like a quilt the; brilliant yellow and red leaves that flitted down from a massive copper beech in the far corner of the yard. To the left of the tree she could see a large five-car garage and beyond it an iron gate that appeared to lead to a service drive in the rear of the estate.
Suddenly Von Holden hung up and swiveled around in his chair. “You shouldn’t come in when I’m on the telephone, Joanna.”
“I wanted to see you.”
“Now you see me.”
“Yes,” she said, smiling. She thought he looked more tired than she’d ever seen him. “Did you have lunch?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Breakfast?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re tired. You even need to shave. Come up to my room. Shower, rest a little.”
“I can’t, Joanna.”
“Why?”
“Because, I have things to do.” Suddenly he stood. “Don’t mother me, I don’t like it.”
“I don’t want to mother you—I want to—make love to you.” She smiled and wet her lips. “Come upstairs, now. Please, Pascal. We may never be able to be alone ever again.”
“You sound like a schoolgirl.”
“I’m not . . . and you know it. . . .” She moved closer, so that she was standing directly in front of him. Her hand slid down over his crotch. “Let’s do it right here. Right now.” Everything about her, the purr of her voice, the movement of her body as she drew herself closer to him, was totally sexual. “I’m wet,” she whispered.
Abruptly Von Holden reached down, took her hand away. “No,” he said. “Now, leave. I will see you tonight.”
“—Pascal. I—love you. . . .”
Von Holden stared at her.
“You should know that by now—”
Suddenly the pupils in his eyes receded to tiny dots and the eyes themselves seemed to press back into his skull. Joanna’s breath caught and she pulled back. Never, ever, had she seen anyone filled with anger or as dangerous as von Holden was now.
“Get out,” he hissed.
With a cry, she turned, bumped into a chair, then pushed around it and ran from the room, the door left open behind her. He could hear her heels on the stone foyer and the sound as she ran up the stairs. He was about to cross to the door to close it when Salettl came in.
“You are angry,” Salettl said.
Von Holden turned his back and stared out the window. He had called Scholl from the car with the final plan. Scholl had listened and agreed. Then, as quickly, he’d taken Von Holden out of it. It was too dangerous, he’d said. Von Holden was too well known as Scholl’s director of European security, and Scholl could not afford to chance the possibility that something would go wrong, with Von Holden killed or captured and the connection made back to him. The police were too close. No, Von Holden would plan it, but Viktor Shevchenko would execute it. That evening Von Holden would be seen publicly escorting Mr. Lybarger to Charlottenburg. And, afterward, he would quietly leave “to do the other,” as Scholl had put it. Those had been the orders and he’d hung up.
“You know,
“Yes, I know.” Von Holden turned to face him. Obviously Salettl knew what had taken place between Scholl and Von Holden because it was the “other” he was referring to. Immediately following the celebration at Charlottenburg, there was to be a second ceremony for very privileged few of the guests. Secret and unannounced, it was to take place in the mausoleum, the temple-like building on the palace grounds that housed the tombs of the Prussian kings. Von Holden was to deliver the highly sensitive material to be presented there, and the access codes necessary to retrieve it had been programmed for him, and him alone, and could not be changed.
That he had been selected was in recognition of the high regard in which he was held and the power he had been given. Angry as he’d been, Scholl had been right, as had Salettl. For more than one reason, today of all days, his personal safety was beyond value. He had to realize he was no longer the Spetsnaz soldier that was still in his blood. He was no longer a Bernhard Oven or Viktor Shevchenko. He was
109
THE INTERROGATION room in the basement of the building on Kaiser Friedrichstrasse was stark white. Floor, ceiling and walls. The same decor as the half-dozen six-by-eight-foot cells that adjoined it. Few people, even those who worked in the building which housed the collection bureau for the municipal public works department, knew the facility existed. But fully one-third of the six-thousand square-foot subbasement was occupied by a special investigations unit of the BKA. Built immediately following the massacre at the 1972 Olympic games in Munich, its primary use was to interrogate captured terrorists and terrorist informants. It had in the past served as a temporary holding area for members of the Baader-Meinhof group, the Red Army Faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and suspects from the bombing of Pan Am flight 103. Besides its stark whiteness, its other distinguishing characteristic was that the lights were never turned off. The effect, in concert, was that within thirty-six hours, prisoners became wholly disoriented, with things usually going downhill from there.
Vera sat alone in the prime interrogation room on a white bench made of a PVC-like plastic molded to the floor. There was no table, no chairs. Only the bench. She had been photographed and fingerprinted. She wore dully gray pull-on slippers and a lighter gray, almost white, nylon jumpsuit with the words GEFANGER,
“My God—” Osborn whispered. “Are you all right?”
Vera’s mouth was open; she was trying to say something but couldn’t. Tears burst forth instead, and then they were in each other’s arms and both were crying. Somewhere between the sobs and frightened caresses he heard her say, “Francois dead”—“WhyamIhere?”—“Everyone killed at farmhouse”—”What—haveIdone?”—“Came— to—Berlin—only—place—left—to—go—to—find—you.”
“Vera. Shhh. It’s all right, honey.” He held her tight against him. Protectively, like a child. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. . . .” Brushing back her hair, he kissed her tears and wiped her cheeks with his hands.’
“They even took my handkerchief,” he said, trying to smile. He had no belt, and they’d taken the laces from his shoes. Then they were holding each other again. Pressed together, arms around each other.
