«Good.»
«Make the hole fairly deep. We wouldn’t want the flames too obvious.»
«Righto.»
Fire. Water. Earth. Burned clothing, charred flesh, smashed and scattered bridgework. John Tennyson walked back over the path and waited. Several minutes later he removed his pistol from the holster and took a long-bladed hunting knife from his overcoat pocket. It would be a messy job, but necessary. The knife, like the shovel, had been in the trunk of the sedan. They were emergency tools, and always there.
A mistake had been revealed. It would be rectified by the Tinamou.
18
Holcroft sipped coffee and looked out at the cold, bright Paris morning. It was the second morning since he had seen Helden, and she was no nearer reaching her brother than she was the night before last.
«He’ll call me; I know he will,» she had told him over the phone minutes ago.
«Suppose I go out for a while?» he had asked.
«Don’t worry. I’ll reach you.»
Don’t worry. It was an odd remark for her to make, considering where he was and how he got there—how they got there.
It had been an extension of the madness. They had left the country inn and driven back to Montmartre, where a man had come out of a doorway and relieved them of the Citroën; they had walked through the crowded streets, past two sidewalk cafés where successive nods meant they could return to Noel’s rented car.
From Montmartre she had directed him across Paris, over the Seine, into Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where they had stopped at a hotel; he had registered and paid for the night. It was a diversion; he did not go to his room. Instead, they had proceeded to a second hotel on the rue Chevalle, where a soft-drink sign provided him with a name for the registry: N. Fresca.
She had left him in the lobby, telling him she would call him when she had news of her brother.
«Explain something,» he had said. «Why are we doing all this? What difference does it make where I stay or whether or not I use my own name?»
«You’ve been seen with me.»
Helden. Strange name, strange woman. An odd mixture of vulnerability and strength. Whatever pain she had endured over the years she refused to turn into self-pity. She recognized her heritage; understood that the children of Nazis were hounded by the ODESSA and the Rache and they had to live with it: damned for what they were and damned for what they were not.
Geneva could help these children; would help them. Noel had settled that for himself. He identified with them easily. But for the courage of an extraordinary mother, he could be one of them.
But there were other, more immediate concerns. Questions that affected Geneva. Who was the elusive Anthony Beaumont? What did he stand for? What really happened to the Von Tiebolts in Brazil? How much did Johann von Tiebolt know about the covenant?
If anyone had the answers it was Johann … John Tennyson.
Holcroft walked back to the window; a flock of pigeons flew over a nearby roof, fanning up into the morning wind. The Von Tiebolts. Three weeks ago he had never heard the name, but now his life was inextricably involved with theirs.
Helden. Strange name, strange girl. Filled with complications and contradictions. He had never met anyone like her. It was as if she were from another time, another place, fighting the legacies of a war that had passed into history.
The Rache. The ODESSA… Wolfsschanze. All fanatics. Adversaries in a bloodbath that had no meaning now. It was over, had been over for thirty years. It was dead history, finished.
The pigeons swooped down again, and in their mass attack on the rooftop, Noel suddenly saw something—understood something—he had not before. It had been there since the other night—since his meeting with Herr Oberst—and he had not perceived it.
It was not over. The war itself had been revived. By Geneva!
There will be men who will try to stop you, deceive you, kill you…
The ODESSA.
The Rache.
These were Geneva’s enemies! Fanatics and terrorists who would do anything to destroy the covenant. Anyone else would have exposed the account by appealing to the international courts; neither the ODESSA nor the Rache could do that. Helden was wrong—at least, partially wrong. Whatever interest both had in the children of party leaders was suspended to fight the cause of Geneva! To stop him. They had learned about the account in Switzerland—somehow, somewhere—and were committed to blocking it. If to succeed meant killing him, it was not a decision of consequence; he was expendable.
It explained the strychnine on the plane—a horrible death that was meant for him. The terror tactics of the Rache. It clarified the events in Rio de Janeiro—gunshots at a deserted lookout and a shattered car window in the night traffic. Maurice Graff and the psychopathic followers of Brazil’s ODESSA.
They knew—they all knew—about Geneva!
And if they did, they also knew about the Von Tiebolts. That would explain what had happened in Brazil. It was never the mother; it was Johann von Tiebolt. He was running from Graff’s ODESSA; the protective brother saving what was left of the family, spiriting himself and his two sisters out of Rio.
To live and fulfill the covenant in Geneva.
A man will come one day and talk of a strange arrangement… And in that «strange arrangement» was the money and the power to destroy the ODESSA—and the Rache—for certainly these were legitimate objectives of the covenant.
Noel understood clearly now. He and John Tennyson and a man named Kessler in Berlin would control Geneva; they would direct the agency in Zurich. They would rip out the ODESSA wherever it was; they would crush the Rache. Among the amends that had to be made was the stilling of fanatics, for fanatics were the fathers of murder and genocide.
He wanted to call Helden, to tell her that soon she could stop running—they could all stop running—stop hiding, stop living in fear. He wanted to tell her that. And he wanted to see her again.
But he had given his word not to call her at Gallimard, not to try to reach her for any reason. It was maddening; she was maddening, yet he could not break his word.
The telephone. He had to call the American Express office on the Champs-Elysées. He had told Sam Buonoventura he would check for messages there.
It was a simple matter to get messages by telephone; he had done so before. No one had to know where he was. He put down his coffee and went to the phone, suddenly remembering that he had a second call to make. His mother. It was too early to call her in New York; he’d reach her later in the day.
«I’m sorry, monsieur,» said the clerk at the American Express office. «You must sign for the cables in person. I’m very sorry.»
Cables! Noel replaced the phone, annoyed but not angry. Getting out of the hotel room would be good for him, would take his mind off the anticipated call from Helden.
He walked along the rue Chevalle, a cold wind whipping his face. A taxi took him across the river, into the Champs-Elysées. The air and the bright sunlight were invigorating; he rolled the window down, feeling the effects of both. For the first time in days he felt confident; he knew where he was going now. Geneva was closer, the blurred lines between enemies and friends more defined.
Whatever was waiting for him at the American Express office seemed inconsequential. There was nothing he could not handle in New York or London. His concerns were now in Paris. He and John Tennyson would meet and talk and draw up plans, the first of which would be to go to Berlin and find Erich Kessler. They knew who their enemies were; it was a question of eluding them. Helden’s friends could help.