“Do you speak English?” Jack asked. He bent over and assisted the elderly woman to her feet.
“Ja,” she said, slowly wiping away her tears. “Yes,” she repeated.
“Your father, is he here?” Jack asked.
The woman started crying and pointed toward the back of the small apartment. Jack handed the woman off to Carl and slowly crept toward one of the two bedrooms. The door on the left was ajar and Collins eased it open with the barrel of the nine-millimeter. As the door opened he went to one knee as quickly as he could and scanned the room with the gun. After a moment he spotted the man they had come to question. Zinsser was lying across his bed still clad in pajamas, with only one slipper on. Jack closed his eyes and rose to his feet.
“Clear,” he called out, without much enthusiasm. With his gun still out and pointed at the closet door, he stepped forward. He eased the closet door open. It was empty of everything except the clothing of an old man in retirement. He looked down and saw that Zinsser’s throat had been cut deeply, nearly to the back of his spine. Shaking his head, Jack looked deeply into the old man’s glazed eyes, then turned and left the bedroom. He checked the daughter’s room and found it empty. He returned to the small living room where Carl had just eased the old woman into a large chair.
“She said he was alone. He got in by claiming he was a house handyman. She says he didn’t ask for anything, just took Zinsser into the bedroom and killed him. He was about to do the same to Ms. Zinsser here, when we showed up.”
Jack stepped forward and grabbed the killer by the collar, lifting him off the floor.
“Okay, wake-up time,” Collins said as he shook the man. “Come on. Time to answer a couple of questions.”
The man moaned and his eyes fluttered open. His hands came up and went to his shattered nose, where blood was still flowing.
“Come on, let me see,” Jack said, as if he were trying to help the man. The young German warily lowered his hands. That was when Jack noticed the freshness of the man’s haircut. The tan ended far lower than it would have if he had always had a shaved head.
Everett had to smile when Jack’s gun hand came up and smashed into the German’s broken nose, sending his bald head backward with a scream of agony. Even the older woman had stopped crying long enough to smile as she saw her father’s killer in pain.
“Now,” Jack said, shaking the moaning man in black. “That was to get your attention. Who sent you?”
“Fuck off,” the man managed to say in English, as blood started flowing at a significant rate, soaking Jack’s hand. The gun hand flew again, striking the man in a part of the nose that was still intact, breaking a new section.
“We can do this all day long, Fritz, it’s up to you.”
“We work for no one. We-”
Again Jack’s hand flew up, as though it was his automatic reaction to a lie. The gun butt struck the man right across the bridge of the nose, crushing the bone and gashing the skin to the cartilage. This time the kid’s weight was too much for Collins and he let the boy fall backward onto the floor.
Everett, who had just given the daughter his handkerchief, saw something on the wall that made him walk over and take a closer look. As Jack leaned over the phony, reeling neo-Nazi, Carl turned and looked at the daughter.
“Ma’am, who’s this man with your father?” he asked, his question drawing Jack’s attention away from the gagging man on the floor.
“That is Albert Speer,” she said, with sad eyes. “I’m afraid he and my father spent many years together inside Spandau.”
“Yes, but that’s not who I mean.” Carl touched the image of a blond-haired man dressed in the uniform of an American lieutenant colonel. “Who is this?”
“That was one of my father’s jailers for a time at the prison. I cannot recall his name at the moment,” she answered. She started crying again.
“Jack, you want to leave your dance partner there for a minute and look at this?”
Collins slapped the man on the side of the face.
“Will you excuse me? I’ll only be a minute.”
The man rolled to his right, clutching his gushing nose. He didn’t bother to answer.
“What have you got?”
“Does this guy look familiar to you?” Everett asked. He turned to make sure Zinsser’s killer wasn’t moving.
Collins saw the picture of the three men and tilted his head.
“He does, but I’ll be damned if I can place him.” Jack turned to the woman and sat on the armrest of the chair. He kept his gun out of view to keep from frightening her any more than she already was.
“Do you know when this photo was taken?”
“I… I… don’t know. At least I’m not positive of the date. I would think it was around 1947, a year or so after my father was convicted of crimes against humanity.” She wiped at her wet eyes. “He really wasn’t a criminal, not like the rest of those pigs. He… he was just a clerk, nothing more.”
“Yes, ma’am, we know, but the man beside-”
That was as far as Jack got. A shout sounded and several men stormed into the room with guns drawn. Jack raised his hands and let the gun slip from his grasp as he recognized the uniforms of the local German police. The five of them were followed by two men in suits. Everett muttered “shit” as the police turned him around and frisked him. Jack endured his own search stoically. Another two officers pulled the killer to his feet.
“Colonel Collins, you are under arrest for entering Germany with false papers, and you are also under arrest for murder in the Republic of Ecuador.” The smaller of the two well-dressed men took Jack’s wrists and handcuffed him.
“I take it you’re Interpol?” he asked as he was turned around.
“We have been informed of your considerable prowess at escaping from custody, and your military accomplishments are valued reading at our offices, Colonel. So please, don’t try any of your tricks. You may find out that you’re not faster than a speeding bullet.”
“Damn, Jack, you mean you really can’t outrun bullets?” Everett smirked as he was led out of the apartment, just behind Zinsser’s killer.
“No, and I can’t jump buildings in a single bound either, smartass.”
“Then I’m afraid we’re going to jail, buddy,” Everett called back.
Just as Jack was led to the door, the old woman stood and kissed him on the cheek.
“Danke,” she said, as she was pulled away by two uniformed officers. She looked at Collins with tears running down her cheeks.
“For what it’s worth, ma’am, we know your father wasn’t anything like those he spent time in jail with.”
Jack was pulled away and the woman looked lost as she watched the scene before her, grateful that her own murder had been interrupted by the two Americans who had arrived out of nowhere.
The man was dressed in the uniform of the Deutsches Heer-the fatigues of the German army. He stood at the large window across the way from the apartment building and gazed through binoculars. The woman beside him stepped anxiously from one foot to the other, waiting nervously for the result of the setup. Laurel Rawlins watched the reaction of the bearded Mechanic as he scanned the apartment building across the way. He moved the field glasses to the right and then the left, making sure his people were in place.
“You will see, Ms. Rawlins, why our plan calls for the first domino to be placed in exactly the right position for our plan to succeed. You will learn here today why things must be in a special order to achieve the results you seek.”
“If you ask me, we should have killed those men as soon as their aircraft landed at the airport. This elaborate setup is a waste of time.”