Anna smiled and put her arms around him, placing her head on his shoulder. “You know the answer, Eric. I’m just waiting for you to ask me,” she said quietly.
He kissed her gently, almost as if she were made of fragile porcelain. “I know I was ready before. But all this made me realize I really can’t do this by myself. I need you Anna. I need you with me. I want you to come back with me for the funeral. Then we can make our plans,” he said. “But while I’m here, I need to talk to your father.”
“You know what he will say.”
“I know. But out of respect, I think I need to. Then I can make it formal,” he said with a grin.
The kiss lasted a long time. Like making up for all the time apart, their passion flowed as they embraced each other. Anna was all Eric wanted in the world, and now he had a world to give to her — a world his mother and father built — and one both would approve of. For over an hour they stood together. Eventually they resumed their walk across the small pier and along the banks of the lake.
Dresner watched the two leave the gazebo and begin their lakeside walk. He and his people were looking all over for something to explain what had happened. At least Eric had someone he could rely on, he thought to himself as he watched them walk hand in hand.
Dresner turned and walked along the drive. Something had happened between the house and the tunnel. Leaving the house were deep tire tracks where the car had sped off. There were no marks in the tunnel, yet the car had obviously been pushed off the ledge. The gravel drive didn’t tell him much. It would absorb almost anything. Dresner stopped and looked at some grass along one side. It was cut shorter than the rest. In a few places it looked like something had burrowed into the dirt. He walked along a line perpendicular to the road and saw a few more of the holes. Getting on his hands and knees he took out his knife and dug down a little deeper. About six inches into the ground was a piece of metal. He examined it in his hand. It was jagged and rough, but painted red on one side.
Dresner stood and returned to the road. There were a few more marks in the dirt on the other side. Looking around one of them, he saw the outline of a heel from a shoe. Returning to the road, Dresner walked to the middle and began kicking away the top level of gravel. After just a few kicks he found many of the stones covered in something dark. There was a faint smell of oil.
Dresner called out to one of the team. “Get your people over here and go through this area. Pull up every piece of metal you can find, then search on a perpendicular line as far as you can. Then have someone check what is under this gravel,” he demanded. The man straightened and began calling in his team.
“Herr Dresner!” came a cry from Eric beside the lake. Dresner watched as Eric bent down and picked up what looked like a metal tube with a trigger on one side.
“He is being followed, Herr Colonel,” Strasser said with concern. “At first we could not tell, they are very professional about it. Their leader, a man named Dresner, is very good at what he does and is very thorough. There is now a team in a flat across the street and another in a car one block away. We were able to follow their movements once we figured out what they were doing. They change chasers about every mile. We have a very serious situation.”
Müller threw his pen down on the desk in disgust. Mantz had been a faithful and diligent member of the organization, but now that time had come to an end. The time for action was too close now and they could not afford any slips. “Is there any alternative?” he asked.
Strasser shook his head. “He knows too much. He is one of the few we have brought to the bunker. If they ever got to him, our cause would be lost.”
Müller agreed. Any other time Mantz could simply be moved. But those times were gone. “I want it to look like an accident. What do you have in mind?”
“Automobile accident. A small explosive in the right place. Not to blow the car up, but disable it while he’s going at high speed. I will use Stadt and his truck to get close and set it off by radio. On our roads, he will probably go over a cliff and that will be that,” said Strasser.
“Approved. Make it as soon as possible. We need to cut any leads to us as quickly as we can. Do you need more men?” asked Müller.
“No, the fewer the better.”
“Tell Stadt no one is to know what happened. It will simply be an accident. And keep an eye on Dresner. We can’t afford him messing up our plans at this stage.”
“Jawohl, Herr Colonel,” Strasser said as he left. They would place the charges and do it tonight, then have someone keep an eye on Dresner beginning tomorrow. Now he had to get hold of Stadt.
“A Panzerfaust!” exclaimed Sergeant Betz in amazement. He turned the tube over in his hands several times. “Where in the hell did this come from?” he exclaimed again. The Panzerfaust was a hand held German anti-tank weapon from the war. Over a million had been destroyed after the surrender.
“I don’t know,” said Dresner as he poked through all the metal they had found, including a large piece of the engine from the Pontiac. The men had assembled the pieces in a lab located in the police basement. “Someone was very clever in the way they did this,” he said. “Young Eric found the Panzerfaust tube just as I discovered where the explosion had been. We were right that something had to have happened before the tunnel. Someone had packed down the places where the metal pieces had burrowed in and had re-covered the road to hide the oil from the engine. Then they cut the grass short to hide the scorched vegetation. It was all planned Betz. But more to the point, there had to be more than one person.”
Betz picked up a piston in his hand and turned it over. “It blew the engine into 100 pieces. No wonder it wasn’t with the car. They couldn’t find all the pieces in the dark. One thing is for certain, your friend and his family didn’t suffer. That weapon is designed to penetrate over 6 inches of armor. It probably stopped the car immediately,” he said sadly.
“Not for little Kate. Someone chose to finish the job instead of saving the child.” Dresner turned and looked angrily at Betz. “We are dealing with something cold and heartless. Something cunning, with some sort of plan in mind. I am now convinced that this is related to the acid theft. Al was the only man I discussed it with besides members of our team. I think we need to bring in our thief.”
“Shall I alert the men?”
“No. We shall do this ourselves,” Dresner said. Betz watched as his friend gathered his coat and started out the door. Betz knew his superior was angry, but angry because someone was getting ready to hurt a lot of people. He was professional enough not to let his feelings for his friend interfere with his work, but the thought of someone hurting the innocent had always disturbed his boss. When that happened, Dresner was a very dangerous man, indeed.
Joaquin Mantz left his house and got in his car. The meeting would be starting in about an hour, so he had plenty of time. Besides, he liked to get there early to talk to other members. The old Mercedes started easily and he backed it into the street and drove into the traffic at the next corner. The alert went out from the men watching the house and the chase car moved into traffic so that it was just two cars behind Mantz. Hearing the call on the radio, Dresner and Betz worked their way through traffic, eventually pulling behind the trailing car. They decided to take their time and follow a bit. It might lead to the acid. A short while later, the first car pulled away and a second pulled in from a side street. Because of Dresner’s training, the Innsbruck police were very efficient in their methods and trailing a suspect was something they were very good at.