“Mein Gott,” he gasped. He knew the housekeeper was not given the day off either. But she was missing.
Heinz went charging through the house, calling Radu and Greta. He even acted as if nothing was wrong, so that she would not think he knew what she was up to. After he had checked the entire house, he realized that she had the boy. But fortunately he knew where she was headed and he only hoped he could make it there before her. To check which flight they’d be on, he went back to her office and checked her computer. There were no ticket bookings he could find, so he assumed she would take her own private plane, leaving him to travel the old fashioned, public way.
Cussing incessantly, he went through her files to see what he was up against. Heinz was shattered by the sudden vile awakening he was dealt. He felt as if his entire marriage had been a lie, as if he was just some idiot she used to give her a good image of stability and values. The big German was sobbing as he paged through her remaining files with pictures of their holidays, their wedding photos and video clips of all their adventures with Igor when he was younger.
Wiping the tears as quickly as they kept coming, the hardened man cried, “Why Greta? Why would you throw all this away? You have such a good life and for wealth, or power…or…what in god’s name are you doing it for anyway?” he screamed with clenched fists he slammed down. Under the force of his fists the cabinet door fell open and a file fell out. Choking on his sorrow, feeling utterly betrayed into what escalated to a bloody nightmare, Heinz-Karl Heller opened the folder and paged roughly through the sheets. They were all doctor’s bills, medical aid brochures, hospital bank accounts, the usual fare of what his wife donated to. But then he found a report with her name on it, and he could not resist reading.
It was a medical report, dated several months before already, stating irrevocably that Greta had rapidly passed through to Stage c4N3M1 of her liver cancer and that it had spread to her pancreas. Heinz-Karl wept bitterly at the sudden collapse of his entire world. It was not just the devastating news that his wife, his partner and lover for no less than a quarter of a century, was dying, but perhaps even more the fact that she was all of a sudden nothing more than a stranger to him. Heinz-Karl felt as if he had been living in a beautiful dream all these years in blissful comfort and trust while outside his slumber his wife and her son lurked as nightmares of the waking world, keeping him asleep.
He called the security at the gate.
“Herr Heller?” the voice said.
“Is everything in order? Has anyone come into my estate that we do not know?” Heinz asked apprehensively. He wished the guard would say someone did, that someone they had never seen before came in and killed the Heller’s’ cook and probably their housekeeper, too. Above all he just did not want to know that his wife was a murderer, but deep inside he knew what security was going to answer. He knew that she had done it, much as he vehemently denied it in his heart. If she could keep so many secrets from him for so long, it said much about her true character and such fickle minds were normally prone to homicide.
“No, sir. Only Frau Heller and little Radu left just a short while ago, but no-one had entered the premises other than your wife when she came back earlier, no. And only she left the premises. There have not been any strangers here, sir,” the man reported. Heinz felt his heart implode under the strain of it all. So suddenly, so severely, his life was gone for good.
“Thank you. That is all,” he said with his most composed tone of voice amidst his immense sorrow.
He booked a flight to Bucharest and packed an overnight bag for light travel. The old German did not have to take any of his side arms or rifles for his private excursion. He had plenty of friends in Eastern Europe from his days in the Wehrmacht, men with armories under their houses and access to an arsenal at any time. They would supply him with all he needed.
Heinz-Karl Heller stood at the Lufthansa check-in with his bag in his hand. His eyes were bloodshot and his countenance grave, but he was determined to put his emotional chaos aside and embark on his own rescue mission. Radu was in serious danger, if Greta was really this far gone in her madness. He had no idea what she wanted with the boy, but he reckoned it had to have something to do with her resolute insistence to adopt the child when they were in Romania. At the time it was an odd enough gesture, he thought, to adopt a child from another country who robbed you, no less. But now he knew there was some arcane reason for it, the details of which he was desperate to discover.
‘It is going to take far too long this way,’ he thought as he looked at the departure times.
With his own money, not that of the sponsors or trusts normally available to him and his wife for their exclusive travels, he chartered a private jet instead, forfeiting his trip on the national airline in lieu of time. He arranged with the manager of EuropAir Jet Rentals to book privately and for no receipts or flight itineraries of his trip to go on record. With his reputation it was a small favor to fulfill.
Once on the jet Heinz was forced to spend the journey thinking about what had happened and it was not at all pleasant. The worst was not being able to cry. Not since he was an early teenager had he so felt the urge to weep, but as usual he had to subdue it under the snakeskin of his image. Tough leather hides like him were expected to take control, know what to do, execute their duty with precision and efficacy — never were they allowed to have feelings. It was the worst pain Heinz had ever been in, even more than when his mother succumbed to her battle with Tuberculosis.
Broken hearted he sat staring from the small window of the jet as they flew over the Czech Republic. He knew what country it was, having flown over it so many times during the war, not the Second World War; the other war, the one no-one was supposed to know about after WWII. The big German was not sure if he was more distraught over his wife’s failing health and impending demise or the death blow she dealt him with her lies. Again Sam Cleave came to mind, the adversary of his beloved Greta. Was the man friend or foe? The question begged, which was his wife? Could he cast aside his lovelorn loyalty and do the right thing?
Tears welled in his eyes and his chest burned with the sting of injustice. Finally, he set his seat back just enough to make him comfortable and he closed his eyes. So much apprehension and rage ebbed and flowed through his heart that he almost looked forward to even the scales in the gross unfairness that polluted his life now. With his eyes closed the flight staff would not bother him, a clever disguise for his crying eyes and need to be alone without fear of judgment or the poison that would build up in his spirit if he did not purge it.
Chapter 26 — Contemplations of Glory
Radu’s skin was on fire. His small heart pulsed faster than a V8 piston as he panted under the blanket Greta had wrapped him in. The child’s top lip had a blister that appeared to have developed during the car ride to the jet, but that was several hours ago and they were now safely in the great sky where it would take any opposing agent ages to track them down and even then, by then, she would have had done what she came to do. Even with the few cards she possessed she would at least be able to do something. Just as she did the day before when she tried the Dealing herself, she managed to make some change on a minute scale. But these changes had always been corrupt because she was not the Dealer; and maybe she did after all need the entire deck to bring about the chaos she intended.