Eric leaned over, parallel to his brother, and said slowly, contemptuously, “So you can kill us all like you killed Moltke and Pfann?”
“I killed them because they would not give me the other three names,” Rogan said. “I offered them a chance to live as I now give you a chance to live.” He signaled now to Rosalie. She brought over pads and pencils and handed them to the brothers.
Hans looked surprised, then grinned. “I will tell you right now. Their names are-” Before Hans could utter another word Rogan jumped up and smashed the German’s mouth with the butt of his pistol. Hans’ mouth became a dark hole out of which bloody pieces of gum bubbled, and bits of broken teeth. Eric tried to come to his brother’s defense, but Rogan pushed him back into the chair. He did not trust himself to hit Eric. He was afraid he wouldn’t stop until the man was dead.
“I don’t want to hear any lies,” Rogan said. “And to make sure you don’t lie to me, you’ll each-separately-write down the names of the other three men who were in the Munich Palace of Justice. You’ll also put down where each man is living now. I’m especially interested in the chief interrogator. I also want to know which man actually killed my wife. When you’ve finished, I’ll compare your separate lists. If both have the same names, you won’t be killed. If the information does not tally, if you have different names listed, you’ll both be killed immediately. That’s the deal. It’s up to you.”
Hans Freisling was gagging, clawing pieces of broken teeth and bits of gum from his smashed mouth. He couldn’t speak. Eric asked the final question: “If we cooperate, what will you do to us?”
Rogan tried to sound as earnest and sincere as possible. “If you both write down the same information, I won’t kill you. I’ll accuse you as war criminals, however, and turn you in to the proper authorities. Then you’ll have to stand trial and take your chances.”
He was amused by the secret looks they gave each other and knew just what they were thinking. Even if arrested and tried, even if convicted, they could appeal and get out on bail. Then they figured they could defect to East Germany and thumb their noses at justice. Rogan, pretending not to notice the looks they exchanged, pulled Hans out of his chair and moved him to the other end of the coffee table so that neither one could see what his brother was writing down. “Get busy,” he said. “And it had better be good. Or you’ll both die here in this room, tonight.” He pointed the Walther pistol at Eric’s head while keeping Hans in full view. With the silencer, the pistol was a frightening-looking weapon.
The brothers began to write. Hampered by the drug, they wrote laboriously, and it seemed a long time before first Eric, then Hans, finished. Rosalie, who had sat on the coffee table between them to make certain they could not signal to each other, picked up their pads to hand them to Rogan. He shook his head. “Read them to me,” he said. He kept the pistol pointed at Eric’s head. He had already decided to kill him first.
Rosalie read Eric’s list aloud. “Our commanding officer was Klaus von Osteen. He is now chief justice in the Munich courts. The other two were observers. The man from the Hungarian army was Wenta Pajerski. He is now a Red party chief in Budapest. The third man was Genco Bari. He was an observer from the Italian army. He now lives in Sicily.”
Rosalie paused. She switched the pads to read what Hans had written. Rogan held his breath. “Klaus von Osteen was the commanding officer. He was the one who killed your wife.” Rosalie paused at the look of anguish that passed over Rogan’s face. Then she continued reading.
The information tallied-both brothers had put down essentially the same information, the same names, although only Hans had named Christine’s murderer. And as Rogan compared the two pads he realized that Eric had given the minimum of information, whereas Hans had included extra details such as Genco Bari being a Mafia member, probably a big man in the organization. Rogan, however, had the feeling that the brothers had held back something he should know about. They were exchanging sly, congratulatory looks.
Again Rogan pretended not to notice. “OK,” he said. “You did the smart thing, so I’m going to keep my part of the bargain. Now I must turn you over to the police. We’ll leave this room together and go down the back stairs. Remember, don’t try to run. I’ll be right behind you. If you recognize anyone when we get outside, don’t try to signal them.”
The two men looked unconcerned; Eric was smirking at Rogan quite openly. Rogan was a fool, they thought. Didn’t the Amerikaner realize the police would release them immediately?
Rogan played it very straight and very dumb. “One other thing,” he said. “Downstairs I’m going to put you in the trunk of my car.” He saw the fear in their faces. “Don’t be frightened and don’t make a fuss. How can I control you if I have to drive the car?” he asked reasonably. “How else can I conceal you from any friends who may be waiting for you outside when I drive out of the parking lot?”
Eric snarled, “We made the trunk of that car an air-sealed chamber. We’ll suffocate. You plan to kill us anyway.”
“I’ve had special air holes drilled into the trunk since then,” Rogan said blandly.
Eric spat on the floor. He made a sudden grab for Rosalie and held her in front of him. But the drug had so weakened him that Rosalie easily twisted out of his grasp. And as she wrenched free one of her long painted fingernails went into Eric’s eye. He screamed and held his hand to his left eye. Rosalie stepped out of the line of fire.
Up to this moment Rogan had controlled his anger. Now his head began to throb with familiar pain. “You dirty bastard,” he said to Eric. “You put down as little information as possible. You didn’t tell me it was Klaus von Osteen who killed my wife. And I’m willing to bet you helped him. Now you don’t want to get into the trunk of the car because you think I’m going to kill you. All right, you son of a bitch. I’m going to kill you right now. Right here in the hotel room. I’m going to beat you to a bloody pulp. Or maybe I’ll just blow your head off.”
It was Hans who brought peace. Almost tearfully, through his puffed and bloody lips, he said to his brother, “Be calm, do what the American wishes us to do. Don’t you see he has gone mad?”
Eric Freisling looked searchingly at Rogan’s face. “Yes,” he said then. “I will do what you wish.”
Rogan stood very still. Rosalie came up beside him and touched him as if to bring him back to sanity. And his terrible anger began to subside. He said to her, “You know what you have to do after we leave?”
“Yes.”
Rogan herded the two brothers out of the room and down the back stairs of the hotel. He kept the gun in his pocket. When they went out of the rear entrance that led to the parking lot, Rogan whispered directions until they came to where the Mercedes was parked. Rogan made them kneel in the gravel at his feet while he unlocked the trunk. Eric got into it first, awkwardly, the drug still affecting his movements. He gave Rogan a last distrustful look. Rogan pushed him to the floor. As Hans crawled into the spacious trunk his mouth tried to form a smile; it was an obscene leer because of his smashed lips and fragmented teeth. He said meekly, humbly, “You know, I’m glad this happened. All these years what we did to you has been on my conscience. I think it will be very good for me, psychologically, to be punished.”
“Do you really think so?” Rogan said politely, and slammed the trunk lid down over them.
CHAPTER 8
Rogan drove the Mercedes around Berlin for the next coup drove the Mercedes around Berlin for the next couple of hours. He made sure a supply of air was going through the rubber hosing and into the trunk. This was to give Rosalie time to do her part. She had to go down to the hotel ballroom, where she would drink, flirt, and dance with the unattached men so that later everyone would remember her having been there. This would give her an alibi.
Near midnight Rogan pulled the wire attached to the steering wheel. This would cut off the air and feed carbon monoxide into the trunk. In thirty minutes or less the Freisling brothers would be dead. Rogan now drove toward the Berlin railway station.
But after fifteen minutes Rogan stopped the car. He had intended to kill them as they had tried to kill him in the Munich Palace of Justice, without warning and still hoping for freedom. He had meant to slaughter them like animals, but he could not.
He got out of the car, went around to the back, and banged on the trunk lid. “Hans… Eric,” he called. He didn’t
