Gurt reminded him. 'Otto Skorzeny.'
Blucher held the picture up, the one of the man in uniform standing in front of the Vatican. 'That's him, Otto Skorzeny.'
Lang settled back into his chair. 'Tell us about him.'
Blucher put the picture down and unhooked the spectacles from his ears before he spoke. ''Austrian, college educated, got that scar in a Schmisse, student duel. Passionately pro-Hitler, SS, sometimes called Hitler's commando. He was the one who flew gliders onto a mountaintop to rescue Mussolini without a shot being fired. Organized the parachute drop onto Cypress that took the British completely by surprise. It was Skorzeny that Hitler sent to Montsegur…'
'Where?' Lang asked, the word faintly familiar. 'The place in the Languedoc in France. It was on one of Don's cards, too,' Gurt said. Lang had the feeling he was getting somewhere, but he had no idea where. 'Excuse me. Please continue.' Blucher nodded. 'Montsegur. It was the last holdout of the Cathars, a here… here…'
'Heretical sect,' Lang said, remembering his adventure in the region last year with something less than fondness.
''Yes, heretics,' the professor continued. 'They were victims of one of the Crusades declared by the Pope in the early thirteenth century. Slaughtered to a man. Question was, what was their heresy? Were they like the Gnostics, who believed Christ rose from the dead spiritually rather than in body? Or was their problem that they had something the Pope wanted or did not want known? With Hitler's obsession with things of a supernatural nature-he was continually searching for the Holy Grail, for instance-he sent Skorzeny to the remnants of the old fortress and cave-'
'Cave?' Lang asked, instantly annoyed with himself for interrupting. He wasn't the only one. Gurt produced and lit a cigarette in retaliation.
'Yes, a cave.' The old man held up another photo, this one showing Skorzeny in lederhosen. 'This one may have been taken there. See the wall behind him with what could be carving on it? Odd. Skorzeny did not allow himself to be photographed very often. Avery secretive man. Almost as though he knew he would be one of the people the Allies would come looking for.'
'Why?' Lang wanted to know. 'He sounds more like a hero than a criminal.'
'I suppose the line can be, er, slender,' Blucher said. 'In 1944, Hitler sent Skorzeny to seize the Citadel of Budapest. The Russians were preparing to invade Hungary, and the Hungarians had been allies of the Germans. Now they wanted to make a separate peace. Hitler couldn't have a Russian ally on his doorstep, so he sent Skorzeny to capture Admiral Miklos Horthy, Hungary's leader, and the whole Hungarian cabinet. With Just a few 55 troops, Skorzeny overthrew the legitimate government of the country, replacing it with a puppet one.'
'Impressive,' Lang said, thinking of too many similarities. The old switch-governments trick had been pulled off more than once by his former employers. 'But criminal in the context of war?'
'Perhaps, perhaps not,' the professor conceded. 'In December of 1944 in the Ardennes-the Bulge, I think you Americans called the battle-Skorzeny rounded up several hundred idiomatic-American-speaking Germans, dressed them in U.S. army uniforms, and infiltrated American lines.'
'They would have been shot as spies,' Lang said.
'But hardly criminal.'
The professor smiled weakly. 'You would have been right had not Skorzeny's men taken over a hundred prisoners, bound them, and shot them in the back, a crime even greater than the theft of every bit of art or treasure he found in Hungary.'
'So,' Lang wanted to know, 'why wasn't he tried for that?' The old man gave a shrug. 'After the war, he disappeared, simply ceased to exist. A few years later, he resurfaced in Spain, under Franco's protection, helped reorganize his army.'
Lang got up to look over the professor's shoulder. Once again he had a feeling of deja vu, a sense of having seen that face before the photographs. 'If the Allies knew he was there, why not force Franco to give him up? I'm sure we had extradition treaties with Spain.'
Blucher grinned slightly. ''You speak like a lawyer.'
'I am a lawyer.'
The old man gave Gurt a wink. 'I am lost. I have entrusted myself to a lawyer.'
Lawyer-bashing, now an international sport.
Blucher stood. 'Why Skorzeny was not taken from Spain is a good question, Herr Reilly. I have some material at home you will find most interesting. It is getting late. Perhaps we can still meet at the castle tomorrow? I'll bring it then.'
'Why not just meet here again?' Gurt asked. 'This suite is more secure than the ruins of a castle.'
'True,' Blucher admitted, 'but in daylight, I feel safer surrounded with people.'
'Let me call you a cab,' Lang volunteered, reaching for the room's phone. 'Write down your address so I can give it to the driver.'
Blucher complied without protest. In a few minutes, he was gone.
Lang looked at Gurt, puzzled. 'If it's not some Nazi group, skinheads, or something, who cares if there's a book published about people who've been dead for years?'
Gurt stubbed out her cigarette. 'Perhaps no one. Perhaps it is other information the book contains, as the old man suggests.'
'But what?'
She was reaching behind herself to unbutton her blouse, a move that thrust her breasts forward. Lang watched, spellbound, before he realized she had asked a question.
'I suppose we'll know tomorrow.'
Gurt folded the blouse neatly and stepped out of her skirt. Although he had seen the performance nightly, it held his undivided attention.
'It is most unattractive to stare like that. I feel like a hamburger Grumps is drooling over.'
'I gave up drooling last week. Besides, if you didn't want me to watch, you'd go into the bathroom.'
'Who has said I did not want you to watch?'
Just as Lang was drifting off, Gurt asked, 'Are you asleep?'
'Not now.'
'Do you really think some organization, Die Spinne, or something like it, is what is against us?'
'What we're up against? Possible. No one, not even old men, want to go to jail or be deported, like I said. And you can bet, old or not, there are really wealthy former Nazis, rich enough to hire assassins by the bushel.'
It was not a comforting thought.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Heidelberg, Germany (Hauptstrasse)
Haus zum Ritter
The next morning
Along with the breakfast of rolls, jelly, cheese, and sausage slices, the tray brought to their room included the day's Frankfurt Allegemeine Zeitung. Gurt unfolded it while Lang poured coffee.
'Mein Gott!' she gasped.
Lang didn't notice that he had spilled boiling coffee on himself as he gaped at a front page with his picture on it and a caption that translated as 'Airport fugitive identified as American lawyer, businessman. ^n
Gurt's head swiveled around the room as though someone might be watching this very moment. 'How did they get the picture?'
'Shit!' Lang jumped out of bed, using a linen napkin to dab at the hot coffee he had dumped in his lap. He took the paper and stared at the grainy photograph. 'Could have been taken by a security camera.'
'Not unless it is custom for you to pose and smile in airports,' Gurt observed. ''You also look younger.'
'Don't let jealousy cloud your judgment,' Lang said, still staring at the newspaper. 'I'd swear that's the
