Reaching out, she kicked at Avril’s foot. Nothing happened.
Trembling, she moved closer, the gun pointed, ready to fire. Bending down carefully, she took hold of Avril’s shoulder and rolled her over on her back. Blood ran down from beneath her chin and onto her blouse. Her left fist was closed. Easing down on one knee, Vera opened it. When she did, she cried out, and moved back. In it was a single-edged razor blade. In the time it had taken Vera to pick up Avril’s gun and come out of the house, Avril Rocard had cut her own throat.
91
Berlin, 11 A.M.
A BLONDE waitress in a Bavarian costume smiled briefly at Osborn, then set a steaming pot of coffee on the table and left. They had come into Berlin on the autobahn and driven directly to a small diner on Waisenstrasse that billed itself as one of Berlin’s oldest restaurants. The owner, Gerd Epplemann, a slight, balding man in a starched white apron, took them directly downstairs to a private dining room where Diedrich Honig waited.
Honig had dark, wavy hair and a neatly trimmed beard flecked with gray. He was nearly as tall as Remmer but his slim build, and the way his arms hung out from jacket sleeves that were too short, made him look taller. That, and his manner of standing, slightly hunched over, head bent from the neck, made him look startlingly like a German Abraham Lincoln.
“I want you to consider the risk. Herr McVey, Herr Noble,” Honig said, as he crossed the room, pacing, his eyes locked on the men he was addressing.
“Erwin Scholl is one of the most influential men in the West. If you approach him, you will be opening a nest far beyond what you consider to be the realm of your experience. You risk horrid embarrassment. To yourselves and to your police departments. To the point where you would either be fired or forced to resign. And it would not end there because once you are out of the protection of your organizations, you will be sued by a sea of attorneys for violation of laws you may never have heard of, and in ways you will not begin to fathom. They will break you down to nothing. They’ll find a way to take your homes, your cars, everything. And when it’s done, if you have pensions left, you will be lucky. Such is the power of a man like that.”
That said, Honig sat down at the long table and poured himself a cup of the strong black coffee the Bavarian waitress had left. The now retired superintendent of the Berlin police was a man courted by the very wealthy and the very powerful at the highest levels of German industry. The latter stages of the cold war had not lessened the deadly resolve of international terrorism. As a result, personal security for one’s self and family had increasingly become de rigueur for the European corporate officer. In Berlin, protection of the fiscal barons had fallen to Honig. So, if anyone was in position to know how the rich and powerful protected themselves in clinches, especially in Berlin, it was Diedrich Honig.
“With all respect, Herr Honig,” McVey bristled, “I’ve been threatened before and so far I’ve survived. You can say the same for Inspectors Noble and Remmer. So let’s forget that and get on to why we’re here. Murders. A series of them that may have begun thirty or more years ago and are still going on today. One of them happened in New York, sometime within the last twenty-four hours. The victim was a little Jewish guy named Benny Grossman. He was also a cop and a very good friend of mine.” McVey’s voice was heavy with anger. “We’ve been working this for some time, but it’s only in the last day or so we’ve started to get some idea of a source. And each time we go around, the more Erwin Scholl’s name comes up. Murder for hire, Herr Honig. A long-term, even capital offense almost anywhere in the world.”
Directly overhead came the sound of laughter, followed by the creaking of floorboards as a number of people came in for lunch. At the same time, the pungent smell of sauerkraut wafted through the air.
“I want to talk to Scholl,” McVey said.
Honig was hesitant. “I don’t know if that’s possible, Detective. You are an American. In Germany you have no authority. And unless you have hard evidence of a crime committed here, I—”
McVey ignored his reticence. “It goes this way. An arrest warrant in Inspector Remmer’s name, directing Scholl to hand himself over to the German Federal Police to be held for extradition to the United States. The charge is suspicion of murder for hire. The American consulate will be informed.”
A warrant like that will mean nothing to a man like Scholl,” Honig said quietly. “His lawyers will eat it for lunch.”
“I know,” McVey said. “But I want it anyway,”
Honig crossed his hands on the table in front of him and shrugged. “Gentlemen, the most I can tell you is that I will do what I can.
McVey leaned in. “If you can’t arrange it, say so now and I’ll find somebody who can. It needs to be done tpday.”
92
VON HOLDEN had left Scholl’s suite at the Grand Hotel Berlin at 7:50. At 10:20 his private jet banked for the final approach to Kloten Airport in Zurich.
At 10:52 his limousine pulled into Anlegeplatz and by 11:00 Von Holden was knocking gently on Joanna’s bedroom door. Joanna had to be coaxed and stroked and Whatever else was necessary to put her back into her earlier frame of mind, where she was both cooperative and eager to care for Elton Lybarger. Which was why Von Holden carried the jet-black Saint Bernard puppy he’d ordered to have ready upon his arrival.
“Joanna,” he said, after his first knock went unanswered. “It’s Pascal. I know you’re upset. I have to talk with you.”
“I have nothing to say to you or anyone else!” she snapped through the closed door.
“Please—”
“No! Dammit! Now, go away!”
Reaching down, Von Holden put his hand on the knob and turned it.
“She’s locked the ,door,” security guard Frieda Vossler said toughly.
Von Holden turned to look at her. Severe and authoritarian, she was square-jawed and heavily built. She needed to relax and smile and make herself more feminine, if that were possible, before any man would look at her with more than contempt.
“You may leave,” Von Holden said.
“I was ordered to—”
“You may leave.” Von Holden glared at her.
“Yes, Herr Von Holden.” Frieda Vossler clicked her walkie-talkie onto her belt, glanced sharply at him, then walked off. Von Holden stared after her. If she were a man and in the Spetsnaz, he would have killed her for that single glance alone. Then the puppy whimpered and squirmed in his arms and he turned back to the door.
“Joanna,” he said, gently. “I have a gift for you. Actually it’s for Henry.”
“What about Henry?” Suddenly the door flung open, and Joanna stood there, barefoot, in jeans and sweatshirt. The thought someone might have harmed her dog, still back in the kennel in Taos, terrified her. Then she saw the puppy.
Five minutes later, Von Holden had kissed the tears from Joanna’s eyes and had her on the floor playing with the five-week-old Saint Bernard. The video she had seen of the explicit sexual escapade involving her, he’d explained, was a cruel study vigorously protested by himself but insisted upon by Lybarger’s board of directors after they’d seriously questioned the man’s ability to resume control of his fifty-billion-dollar multinational corporation. Afraid of a second stroke or heart attack, their insurance underwriters wanted unequivocal proof of his strength and physical stamina under the most vigorous of everyday conditions. Usual tests were not sufficient, and the underwriters had asked their chief physician, in con-cert with Salettl, to design one.
