“Cadoux, this is McVey. Noble is on the extension, Where are you?”
“A public phone inside a small grocery in the north part of the city.” Cadoux wasn’t comfortable with English and spoke haltingly. He sounded tired and frightened and was talking not to be overheard, just above a whisper. “Klass and Halder are the moles inside Interpol. They arranged for the murders of Albert Merriman and Lebrun and that of his brother in Lyon.”
“Cadoux, who are they working for?” McVey was pressing him right from the beginning to reveal which side he was on.
“I— I can’t tell you.”
“What the hell does that mean? Do you know or don’t you?”
“McVey, please understand what I’m doing—this is very difficult for me—”
“All right. Take it easy. . . .”
“They—Klass and Halder—forced me to participate in the killing of Lebrun because of an old connection to my family. They brought me to Berlin because they know you are here. They wanted to use me to set you up. I cooperated with them once but it’s no good and I told them so . . . I won’t do it again. . . .”
“Cadoux.” McVey was suddenly sympathetic. “Do they know where you are?”
“Perhaps, but I think not. At least for the moment. They have informants everywhere. It’s how they knew where to find Lebrun in London. Listen to me, please.” Cadoux’s voice became more urgent. “I know you have a meeting scheduled with Erwin Scholl before the reception at Charlottenburg Palace tonight. I must see you before you confront him. I have information you need. It has to do with a mart named Lybarger and his connection to the headless bodies.”
McVey and Noble exchanged surprised glances.
“Cadoux, tell me what it is—”
“It’s unsafe for me to remain here longer”
“Cadoux, this is Noble. Was a Doctor Salettl involved in removing the heads?”
“I’m staying at the Hotel Borggreve. Number 17 Borggrevestrasse. Room 412, top floor in the back. I have to hang up now. I’ll expect you.”
Noble let the phone settle back into the cradle and looked to McVey. “Do we have a sudden light at the end of the tunnel or is it an oncoming train.”
“No idea,” McVey said. “At least part of what he’s told us is the truth.”
Remmer came in from the bedroom. “His call came from a food shop near Schonholz subway station. Inspectors are on the way.”
McVey put his hands on his hips and looked off. “Okay, he was telling the truth about that, too.”
“You’re worried it’s a setup,” Remmer said.
“Yeah, I’m worried it’s a setup. But that’s balanced against another worry. The same one I’ve had all along. That other than Osborn’s testimony, our case against Scholl doesn’t exist.”
“What you’re saying is Cadoux might be able to fill in a lot of blanks,” Noble said quietly. “And trouble or not, you think we ought to meet him.”
McVey waited a long moment. “I don’t think we have any choice.”
112
4:57 P.M.
THE THIN red glow of a setting sun sat on the horizon as a silver Audi sedan turned out of traffic on Hauptstrasse and pulled up to the front gate of the house at number 72. The driver rolled down his window as a security guard came out of the stone guardhouse, and flashed a BKA I.D.
“My name is Schneider. I have a message for Herr Scholl,” he said in German. Immediately, two other security guards, one with a German shepherd on a leash, appeared out of the enveloping darkness. Schneider was asked to step out of the car and it was thoroughly searched. Five minutes later he drove through the gate and up to the main entry.
The front door opened and he was ushered inside. A pale, pig-faced man in a tuxedo met him in the foyer. “I have a message for Herr Scholl.”
“You can tell me.”
“My orders are to speak to Herr Scholl.”
They went into a small paneled room where he was frisked.
“Not armed,” he said as another man, also in a tuxedo, entered. He was tall and good-looking, and Schneider knew instantly he’d met Von Holden.
“Please, sit down,” he said, then left through a side door. He was younger and more fit than his photograph allowed. Close to Osborn’s age, Schneider thought.
Ten minutes or more passed with Schneider seated and the pig-faced man standing, watching him, before the same door opened and Scholl entered, followed by Von Holden.
“I am Erwin Scholl.”
“My name is Schneider of the Bundeskriminalamt,” Schneider said, getting up. “Detective McVey has unfortunately been delayed. He has asked me to apologize and to see if another time can be arranged.”
“I’m sorry,” Scholl said. “I am leaving for Buenos Aires this evening.”
“That’s too bad.” Schneider paused, using the time to try to get a sense of the man.
“I had very little time as it was. Mr. McVey knew that.”
“I understand. Well, again his apologies.” Bowing slightly, Schneider nodded to Von Holden, then turned on his heel and left. Moments later, the gate opened and he drove off. He’d been asked to keep a sharp eye for Lybarger or the woman in the photograph. All he’d been allowed to see was the foyer and the small paneled room. Scholl had addressed him with complete indifference. Von Holden had been cordial, nothing more. Scholl had been there at the appointed time as promised, and there had been nothing to indicate he planned otherwise. That meant there was every chance they had no idea what Cadoux was up to and lessened the probability of a setup. For that, Schneider breathed a sigh of relief.
Scholl himself had seemed little more than a well-preserved old man used to subservience and getting what he wanted. The curious thing—and it was curious—was not so much the zigzag of deep scratches healing on Scholl’s left hand and wrist, but the prominent way he held the hand up, as if he were displaying it and at the same time saying: Any other man would find pain in this and look for sympathy; I, instead, have found pleasure, which is something you could never understand.
113
THEY WERE riding in two cars. Noble with Remmer in the Mercedes. Osborn at the wheel of a black Ford, with McVey in the passenger seat beside him. Unmarked BKA backup cars, one with veteran inspectors Kellermann and Seidenberg, and one with Littbarski and a boyish-looking detective named Holt, were already outside the hotel. Kellermann/Seidenberg in the back alley, Littbarski/Holt across the street in front. Kellermann and Seidenberg had checked out the small grocery near the Schonholz subway entrance where Cadoux had made his call. The proprietor vaguely remembered a man of Cadoux’s description using the telephone and seemed to think he’d been there only a short time and had been alone.
In front of them Remmer pulled to the curb and shut out the lights. “Keep going to the corner. When you find a spot pull in,” McVey said to Osborn.
The Hotel Borggreve was a small residential hotel on a particularly dark section of street northeast of the Tiergarten. Four stories tall, maybe sixty feet wide, it linked two taller apartment buildings. From the front, it looked old and poorly kept. Room 412, Cadoux had told them. Top floor in the back.
