scary thing is, I can't do a damned thing about this.
Five minutes before that anonymous call, I received an order to cease
and desist all investigations pertaining to Spandau Prison or Rudolf
Hess.'
A faint smile touched the corners of Schneider's lips.
'Who gave you that order, Colonel?'
'It came from on high, my friend. What we call Echelons Beyond Reality.
If you ask me, Washington's covering for the goddamn Brits.'
'You mean the letters on the floor?'
'Damn right. Harry was obviously trying to tell us who did this.
And it seems to me that B and r are the first two letters of British.'
Schneider sucked in his breath. 'Colonel, I'm not sure that second
letter is an r It could be a c or even an o. If it is an r, Richardson
could have been trying to wr Bruderschaft-the Brotherhood. Phoenix.'
'Maybe, Rose admitted. 'But you just told me you didn't think Germans
did it. Make up your mind, will you?'
He paused in thought. 'No, that swastika is just too goddamn obvious.
This case revolves around Spandau, and Hess. We've got a dead Russian
and a dead American. In my book that leaves the Brits, not the
Germans.'
Schneider raised an eyebrow. 'An anonymous caller using a British
accent is just as obvious as that swastika. Also, we can't discount the
possibility that the murderer himself drew those letters in the blood.
To mislead us.' The German sighed uncomfortably. 'Colonel, is it
possible that men from
your own government could have done this?' is
Rose looked up sharply. 'Schneider, I've been in this man,s army all my
life. But if I believed what you just suggested, I'd take this story
straight to the fucking New York Times.'
Schneider believed him. 'So what are you going to do? If your own
people won't help you on the Hess case, you're stuck.'
,you ought to know me better than that by now,' Rose countered.
He lifted an arm and pointed back down the hall.
'I liked that man back there,' he said soffly- 'He served his country in
war, and he served it in what the politicians like to call peace.'
Rose's cheek twitched with the intensity of his anger.
'Whoever did that to him-Brit, German, whoever-he and his bosses are
going to pay like they never dreamed in all their worthless goddamn
lives. I won't rest until they do.'
Just then Clary knocked twice quickly on the door, then opened it.
Schneider's mouth fell open. Silhouetted in Harry Richardson's
apartment door was the stocky, trenchcoated figure of Colonel Ivan
Kosov. The Russian took two steps into the foyer and bent over the body
of, Dmitri Rykov.
When he looked up, Schneider saw points of black fire flickering in his
eyes. Fury crackled off him like static electricity.
Stunned, Schneider turned to Rose for an explanation.
'I called him,' Rose confessed. 'if my own people won't help me, by
God, I'll take help where I can find it.'
Schneider peered into Rose's eyes. 'Why am I really here, Colonel?' he
asked quietly. And then suddenly he knewRose had been forbidden to
pursue the Spandau case using his own men, so he had called Schneider
here to pick up the torch Harry Richardson had dropped. It made
Scfineider angry that the American thought he needed cheap theatrics to
motivate him. He had wanted to go to South Africa with Richardson all
along. Funk, Luhr, Goltz: these men were minions, corrupt servants of
an insidious power creeping into Germany from without. Stopping them
would be a temporary victory at best. Whoever they served was the true
enemy. To unite officers of the Stasi and the Polizei-sworn
enemies-would take a truly monstrous power. And to kill a monster,
Schneider knew, you cut off its head, not its hand.
With a glance back at Kosov's kneeling figure, he caught Rose by the
ar-rn and pulled him back into the room where Harry's corpse sat baking
in the dry heat.
'I'll go to South Ahica, Colonel,' he growled. 'But I don't like being
manipulated. You should have sent me in the first place. You want to
find two German cops? Send a German cop.' Schneider jerked his thumb
toward the front room. 'But I report to you, not him.
Understood? I trust you alone. Not your government, not Kosov, not his
government.
Just YOU.'
'Agreed, Detective.' Rose pulled Harry's airplane ticket from his
pocket and handed it to the German. 'From now on, all expenses will be
paid out of my personal bank account.' He lowered his voice. 'Your
flight leaves at two Pm.
tomorrow. I'll brief you just before you leave. Now, if you don't
mind, I need to talk a little shop with my new Russian friend.'
Schneider turned. Ivan Kosov stood motionless in the bedroom door, his
eyes riveted on Harry Richardson's mutilated head. He made no sound.
Schneider stuffed the plane ticket into his coat pocket and moved toward
the door. At the last moment, Kosov stepped aside.
Schneider paused, looked back at Harry, then looked into the Russian's
eyes lohg enough for Kosov to read the message there. I hate Russians
as much as you hate Germans, it said. I blinded your little black
assassin, and I haven't ruled you out as a suspect in this either
Schneider walked on. He understood Colonel Rose's motives: this was a
marriage of expediency, nothing more. Politics, as ever, made strange
bedfellows. Rose didn't TRUSt his Russian counterpart any more than
Schneider did, but the two professionals had much in common. They're
like a pair of fathers grieving over murdered sons, Schneider thought as
he trudged down the stairs. A pair of very dangerous fathers.
Kosov had looked even angrier than Rose, if that was possible.
Schneider only hoped the two men realized what they and he-were up
against. Eighteen hours ago Harry Richardson had practically scalped a
Stasi agent in an East Berlin street. Tonight he was slated for a
closed-casket funeral. The man who had done that to him, Schneider
reflected, was a man to be taken very seriously indeed.
Six floors below Harry's apartment, Yuri Borodin smiled with
satisfaction. His plan had worked after all. Ten minutes ago he'd been
