onto the grounds. A light was on in the bungalow kept by his nephews Eric and Edward. Going to the door, he’d knocked. When no one answered he let himself in.
The luxurious main room, dwarfed by a massive stone fireplace and filled with expensive furniture, state of the art audio and video equipment, and shelf upon shelf of athletic trophies, was empty. The doors to the rear bedrooms were closed.
Assuming his nephews were asleep, Lybarger was turning to go when he saw a large envelope lying on a shelf near the door, probably left there for a messenger. On it was written “Uncle Lybarger.” Thinking it was for him, he opened it and found a video cassette inside. Curious, he’d taken it and gone back to his study where he put it into his video deck, turned on his TV and sat back to watch whatever it was the boys had been about to send him.
What he saw was a tape of himself kicking a soccer ball with Eric and Edward, a political talk he had given that had been carefully coached by his speech therapist, a drama professor at the University of Zurich. And then— shockingly—a sequence showing himself and Joanna in bed, with all kinds of numbers running on the screen, and Von Holden standing by, naked as the moment he was born.
Joanna was his friend and companion. She was like his sister, even his daughter. What he’d seen had horrified him. How could it be? How had this happened? He had no memory of it whatsoever. Something, he knew, was terribly wrong.
The question was: Did Joanna know about it? Was this some kind of sick game she was playing with Von Holden? Filled with shock and anger, he’d gone immediately to her room. Waking her from a deep sleep, he’d loudly and indignantly demanded she look at the tape immediately.
Confused and more than a little upset by his manner and his presence in her bedroom, she’d done as he asked. And now, as the tape unspooled, she was as unnerved as he. Her terrifying dream of a few nights earlier had been no nightmare at all, but instead a vivid remembrance of what had actually taken place.
When it was done, Joanna shut off the machine and turned to face Lybarger. He was pale and trembling, as drained as she.
“You didn’t know, did you? You had no idea that had happened?” she said.
“Nor you—”
“No, Mr. Lybarger. I most certainly did not.”
Suddenly there was a sharp rap at her door. It opened immediately and Frieda Vossler, a square-jawed, twenty-five-year-old member of Anlegeplatz’s security force entered.
Salettl and security chief Springer came into Joanna’s room several minutes later to find an indignant Lybarger hammering the video into the palm of his hand and screaming at guard Vossler, demanding to know the meaning of such an outrage.
Calmly Salettl had taken away the video and asked Lybarger to relax, warning him that what he was doing could bring on a second stroke. Leaving Joanna in the company of the security force, Salettl had seen Lybarger back to his room, taken his blood pressure and put him to bed, giving him a strong sedative laced with a mild psychedelic drug. Lybarger would sleep for some time and the sleep would be filled with surreal and fanciful dreams. Dreams, Salettl trusted, Lybarger would confuse with the incident of the video and his visit to Joanna’s room,
Joanna, on the other hand, had been less cooperative, and when Salettl returned to her room, he considered firing her on the spot and sending her back to America on the first flight available. But he realized her absence might be even more disruptive. Lybarger was used to her, trusted her for his physical well-being. She had brought him this far, even to the point of getting him to walk confidently without aid of a cane, and there was no way to tell what he would do if she were no longer there. No, Salettl had decided, firing her was out of the question. It was vitally important she accompany Lybarger to Berlin and stay with him until he left to give his speech. Politely he had prevailed upon her, for Lybarger’s sake, to. return to bed. That an explanation of what she had seen would be given her in the morning.
Frightened, angry and emotionally drained, Joanna had had the presence of mind not to press it.
“Just tell me,” she’d said. “Who knew about it besides Pascal? Who took the damn pictures?”
“I don’t know, Joanna. I certainly haven’t viewed it so I’m not certain what
“All right,” she’d said, then waited for them to leave before closing the door behind them and locking it.
Outside, Salettl had immediately posted security agent Frieda Vossler at her door with instructions that no one was to enter or exit without his permission.
Five minutes later he sat down at his office desk. It was already Thursday morning. In less than thirty-six hours, Lybarger would be in Berlin about to be presented at Charlottenburg Palace. After everything, and so close to the hour, that something could go wrong in Anlegeplatz was a circumstance none of them had even considered. Picking up the phone, he dialed Uta Baur in Berlin. Expecting to wake her, he was transferred to her office.
“I think you should know . . . there has been some confusion here at Anlegeplatz.”
86
BY OSBORN’S watch it was nearly 2:30 in the morning, Thursday, October 13.
Next to him, in the dark, he could see Clarkson scanning the red and green lighted instrument panel of the Beechcraft Baron as he held it at a steady 200 knots. Behind them, McVey and Noble dozed fitfully, looking more like weary grandfathers than veteran homicide detectives. Below, the North Sea shimmered in the light of a waning half-moon, its strong tide running full against the Netherlands coast.
A short while later they banked to the right and entered Dutch air space. Then they were crossing over the dark mirror that was the Ijsselmeer, and soon afterward flying east over lush farmland toward the German border.
Osborn tried to picture Vera holed up in a house in the French countryside. It would be a farmhouse with a long drive up to it so that the armed men guarding her could see anyone coming well before they got there. Or maybe not. Maybe it was a modern two-story home on the rail line of a small town that trains passed by a dozen times a day. A nondescript house like thousands of others throughout France, ordinary and plain looking, with a five-year-old car parked out front. The last place a Stasi agent would ever guess housed his target.
Osborn must have dozed off himself because the next thing he saw was the faint glow of dawn on the horizon and Clarkson was dropping the Beechcraft through a light deck of clouds. Directly beneath, he said, was the river Elbe, dark and smooth, like a welcoming beacon that stretched as far in front of them as either of them could see.
Descending farther, they followed its southern bank for another twenty miles until the lights of the rural city of Havelberg shone in the distance.
McVey and Noble were awake now, watching as Clarkson dipped the left wing and banked sharply. Coming around, he cut the throttle and made a low, nearly silent, pass over the shadowy landscape. As he did, a signal light on the ground blinked twice then went out.
“Take us in,” Noble said.
Clarkson nodded and brought the Baron’s nose up. Giving the twin 300-horsepower engines a burst of power, he executed a steep righthand roll, then eased off the throttle and dropped back down. There was a bump as the landing gear came down, then Clarkson leveled off and came in just above the treetops. As he did, a row of blue lights came on, defining a grass landing strip in front of them. A minute later the wheels touched, the nose came over and the front wheel settled down. Immediately the landing lights went out and there was a deafening roar as Clarkson gave the propellers full reverse thrust. Several hundred feet later, the Baron rolled to a stop.
“McVey!”
A thick German accent was followed by a heavy laugh as McVey stepped out onto the dewy wet grass of the Elbe meadow some sixty miles northwest of Berlin and was instantly swept up in a giant bear hug by a huge man in
