'Yeah. Clary got a telephoto shot of him standing outside the customs
booth.'
Schneider nodded. 'Is this why you called me here?'
Rose shook his head, then turned and disappeared down a short dark
hallway. The German followed, the familiar weight of mortality in his
belly. When he saw what awaited in the bedroom, a cold dread began to
seep outward from his heart.
Harry Richardson sat wide-eyed in a wooden chair, facing the bedroom
door. He was naked. The chair sat in a pool of blood. Thin nylon
ropes bound Harry's arms and legs to the chair. A pair of navy blue
dress socks had been stuffed into his mouth. Schneider immediately
noticed the cluster of small red circular marks on Richardson's chest.
Cigarette burns. Schneider had worked his share of child abuse cases.
Just below the burns, three lateral slashes trisected the abdomen, not
deep, but bloody and probably unbearably painful.
But the head was the worst. Carved into Harry Richardson's high
forehead was a jagged red swastika. Rivulets of sticky blood streaked
down from the arms of the broken cross, into Harry's open eyes, across
his lips. Schneider had to remind himself to start breathing again.
'What happened?' he asked in. German.
Colonel Rose stood in the far corner of the room, his legs slightly
apart, planted as firmly as trees in the earth. He held his arms folded
across his chest. 'You tell me,' he said, his voice distant, almost
nonhuman. 'That's why I called you.'
'Goddamn it,' Schneider muttered, 'why haven't you closed his eyes?'
'You're the homicide detective. I wanted you to see the crime scene
before we touched him. Maybe you'll see something I don't.'
Schneider looked around the room. It had been torn to pieces by someone
who knew how to conduct a rapid search.
'What about your people?'
Rose's eyes narrowed. 'You said you wanted to help me, Schneider.
Here's your chance.'
The German squinted at Rose, then shook his big head slowly. 'Colonel, a
homicide investigation is a team proce I need fingerprint men,
photographers, forensic technicians.
'I don't care about all that crap,' Rose retorted. 'I could have
high-tech coming out the wazoo if I wanted it. I'm interested in your
gut. Your trieb, remember?'
With a surreal sense of dislocation, Schneider walked a slow circle
around the room, keeping his eyes on Richardson's naked body all the
time. He noted several facts at once-the obvious. But Schneider was a
great mistruster of the obvious. Too often plain facts concealed more
subtle truths. The cause of death seemed plain enough: a bullet hole in
the back of the neck, small caliber, fired into the fragile bones of the
cervical spine. An execution. That Harry had resisted death was also
plain; his skin had been burned by the ropes that held him fast.
Schneider's eyes found Harry's lifeless gray orbs just once, and he
looked away quickly.
There was nothing to be found there but the frozen moment of stunned
horror-more animal than human-that Schneider had seen more times than
any man should.
Last came the message-if message it was. Drawn in the pool of blood
beneath Harry's right foot, like a child's fingerpainting, was a small
but clear capital B. Harry's right great toe was stained'scarlet, like a
blunt pen dipped in a well of blood. After the B came a curved line
that could have been the start of another letter-perhaps a lower-case
rebut in the midst of forming it Harry must have been shot, for a
tangential line arced sharply outward, as if the foot drawing it had
been flung wide in spasm.
Schneider crouched and examined the first letter. There was no
mistaking it: it was a B or nothing. With a long last look at the
second letter, the big German stood, carefully closed Harry's eyelids,
and walked back to the front room.
The air was breathable there. Rose's marching feet echoed behind him.
,what do you make of it?' Rose asked. 'Dead Russian, dead American,'
Schneider replied.
'None of my business.'
'I'm making it your business. Who do you think did it?'
'Someone in a hurry.'
'I'm not in the mood for games, Schneider.'
The German took a huge breath, exhaled. 'All right.
Someone broke in here, surprised Richardson, tortured him for
information, and was surprised by the Russian in the front. The Russian
tried to run; the killer shot him in the back.
After getting his information@r not getting it-the killer executed
Richardson and left.' Schneider sighed.
'How did you find out about it?'
'Anonymous call. Guy had a British accent. Clary and I hauled ass over
here, found Harry, and sealed the place off.'
Schneider digested this in silence.
'What about that swastika?' Rose asked.
Schneider shrugged.
'A bullet in the neck is a Dachau-style execution,' Rose pointed out.
'SS-style.'
'They do it the same way in Lubyanka.'
'Yeah,' Rose muttered. 'So you don't think it's the Germans? Not
Phoenix, or the Brotherhood, or whatever neoNazi wackos Harry pissed off
when he killed Goltz?'
'Why would Germans do dais?' Schneider asked. 'Even Der Bruderschaft?
Or if they did, why would they leave a swastika? Why not the red eye?
Why leave anything at all?
They would know you Americans would go mad with rage.
How could that help them? If you implemented one-fourth of your reserve
powers, Berlin would become Beirut.'
'Why this, why that' Rose grumbled. 'Why would the fucking Stasi kill
a KGB officer and bring the whole weight of the KGB down on their heads?
Nothing makes sense since yesterday, Schneider. Maybe they want us to
crack down on Berlin. Maybe they think that would spark big protests
against continued occupation.' Rose rubbed his forehead anxiously. 'The
