"Werner," said his colleague, "since this woman is already our guest, why don't we—" Mr. Buba didn't get to finish his sentence. Stepping from behind the woman, Manfred swung Werner's billy club at the guard. The black wood crashed lengthwise against Mr.
Buba's mouth, and the guard gagged on blood and teeth as he fell back against the prop trailer. Manfred hit him again, on the right temple, spinning Mr. Buba's head to the left.
The guard stopped gagging. He slid to the ground and sat there, leaning against the trailer, blood pooling behind his neck and shoulders.
Manfred opened the door of the cab, threw Werner's bloody club in ahead of him, then climbed in. As he did, a man from the film crew shouted, "Jody!" Karin faced away from the set. She knelt, pulled off her backpack, and slipped out her Uzi.
The short man shook his head and began walking toward the trailer.
"Jody, what the hell are you doing there, our soon-tobe ex-intern?" Karin stood and turned.
The assistant director stopped. He was nearly fifty yards away.
"Hey!" he said. He squinted toward the trailer. "Who are you?" He raised an arm and pointed. "And is that one of our prop guns? You can't—" A confident pup-pup-pup from the Uzi dropped Hollis Arlenna on his back, arms splayed, eyes staring.
The moment he hit the ground, people began screaming and running. At the prompting of a young actress, a young actor tried to make his way to the fallen assistant director. As he crawled toward Arlenna, toward Karin, a second burst from the Uzi slammed into the top of the actor's head. He crumpled in on himself. The young actress shrieked and continued shrieking as she watched from behind a camera.
The trailer's powerful engine growled to life. Manfred revved it, drowning out the cries from the set.
"Let's go," he yelled to Karin as he shut the door of the cab.
The young woman walked backward, behind her Uzi, toward the open door of the trailer itself. Expressionless, she jumped in, pulled up the collapsible stairs, and closed the door.
As Manfred roared off through the woods, Mr. Buba's dead body flopped lifelessly to the ground.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jean-Michel thought it fitting that his meeting with the leader, the self-proclaimed New Furhrer, was taking place in the St. Pauli district of Hamburg.
In 1682, a church dedicated to St. Paul was erected here, on the hilly banks of the Elbe. In 1814, the French attacked and looted the quiet village and nothing was the same thereafter. Hostels, dance halls, and brothels were built to cater to the steamship sailors who came through, and by the middle of the century the St. Pauli region was known as a district of sin.
Today, at night, St. Pauli was still that. Gaudy neon signs and provocative marquees announced everything from jazz to bowling, live sex shows to tattooists, waxworks to gambling. Innocent-sounding questions like "Do you have the time?" or "Have you got a match?" brought visitors together with prostitutes, while drugs were offered by name in low, careful voices.
It was appropriate that the representative of the New Jacobins should meet Felix Richter here. The new French incursion, and the union of their movements, would change Germany again. This time, for the better.
The Frenchman had left his two traveling companions asleep in the room and caught a taxi outside his hotel on An der Alster. The fifteen-minute ride to St. Pauli ended at Grosse Freiheit, in the heart of the lurid entertainment district. The area was deserted, save for tourists who wanted to see the sights without the enticements.
Jean-Michel pushed back his thick black hair and buttoned his moss-green blazer. Tall and slightly overweight, the forty-three-year-old executive vice president of Demain was looking forward to meeting Richter.
The few who knew him and the fewer who knew him well agreed on two things. First, Richter was dedicated to his cause. That was good. Monsieur Dominique and the rest of the French team were dedicated people as well, and M.
Dominique loathed dealing with anyone who wasn't.
Second, people said that Richter was a man of wild, sudden extremes. He could embrace you or decapitate you, as whimsy dictated. In that respect, Richter appeared to have much in common with Jean-Michel's own shadowy employer. M. Dominique was a man who either hated or loved people, was generous or ruthless as the moment dictated. Napoleon and Hitler were the same way.
It is something in the makeup of leaders, Jean-Michel told himself, which does not permit them to be ambivalent.
He was proud to know M. Dominique. He hoped he would be proud to know Herr Richter.
Jean-Michel walked up to the black metal door at the front of Richter's club, Auswechseln. There was nothing on the door save for a fish-eye peephole and a buzzer beneath it. To the left, on the jamb, was the marble head of a goat.
The Frenchman pressed the button and waited.
Auswechseln, or Substitute, was one of the most infamous, decadent, and successful nightspots in St. Pauli, Men had to come with a date. Upon entering, the couple was given one pink and one blue necklace with different numbers; whoever had the matching number was their new date for the evening. Only well-dressed, attractive people were admitted.
A rough voice came from the open mouth of the goat.
"Who is it?" "Jean-Michel Horne," the Frenchman said. He was about to add in German, "I have an appointment with Herr Richter, " but decided not to. If Richter's aides didn't know who was expected, then he was running a sloppy operation.
One from which Jean-Michel and his associates would be wise to walk away.
A moment later the door opened and a bodybuilder over six and a half feet tall motioned Jean-Michel in. The big man shut and locked the door and put a massive hand on the Frenchman's shoulder. He moved Jean-Michel to a spot beside the register, patted him down thoroughly, then held him there for a moment.
Jean-Michel noticed the video camera on the wall and the tiny receiver in the big man's ear. Someone, somewhere, was comparing his image with the fax which had been sent from M. Dominique's office at Demain.
After a moment, the giant said, "Wait here." Then he turned and disappeared into the darkness.
Efficient, Jean-Michel thought as the big man's heavy footsteps thumped across the dance floor. But caution wasn't a bad thing. M. Dominique hadn't gotten where he was either by being careless.
Jean-Michel looked around. The only light came from four red neon rings around the bar to his right. They didn't tell him much about what the club looked like or whether the big man had even left the room. All that the Frenchman knew for certain was that despite the hum of the air vents the place smelled. It was a slightly nauseating blend of stale cigarette smoke, liquor, and lust.
After a minute or two, Jean-Michel heard fresh footsteps. They were considerably different from the first.
They were confident but light and they tapped rather than scraped along the floor. A moment later, Felix Richter stepped into the red light of the bar.
Jean-Michel recognized the dapper thirty-two-year-old from the photographs be had seen. Not that the picture captured the dynamism of the man. Richter stood just under six feet tall, his blond hair short and carefully razor-cut. He was dressed in an impeccably tailored three-piece suit, highly polished shoes, and a black tie with red stripes. He wore no jewelry. Richter's people regarded that as effeminate, and there was no room in the party for that.
"Medals. That is all I allow our men to wear, " Herr Richter had said once in an editorial in his newspaper, Unser Kampf, Our Struggle.
More impressive than Richter's attire, however, were his eyes. The photographs hadn't captured them at all. Even in the red light of the bar, they were riveting. And once they found their target they didn't move. Richter did not seem the kind of man to avert his eyes from anyone.