«You say such nice things.»
They stopped at an intersection. He turned Helden to him, both his hands on her arms. «I say them because I mean them.»
«I believe you,» she said, looking at him curiously, her eyes part questioning, part fearful.
He saw the fear; it bothered him, and so he smiled. «Love me a little?»
She could not bring the smile to her lips. «I think I love you more than a little. You’re a problem I didn’t want. I’m not sure I can handle it.»
«That’s even better.» He laughed and took her hand to cross the street. «It’s nice to know you don’t have all the answers.»
«Did you believe I did?»
«I thought you thought so.»
«I don’t.»
«I know.»
The restaurant was half filled with diners. Helden asked for a table in the rear, out of sight of the entrance. The proprietor nodded. It was apparent that he could not quite fathom why this belle femme would come into his establishment with such a poorly dressed companion. In his eyes was the comment: things were not going well for the girls of Paris these days. Nights.
«He doesn’t approve of me,» said Holcroft.
«There’s hope for you, though. You grew in his estimation when you specified expensive whiskey. He grinned; didn’t you see?»
«He was looking at my jacket. It came from a somewhat better rack than the overcoat.»
Helden laughed. «That overcoat’s purpose was not high fashion. Did you use it in Berlin?»
«I used it. I wore it when I picked up a whore. Are you jealous?»
«Not of anyone accepting an offer from you dressed like that.»
«She was a vision of loveliness.»
«You’re lucky. She was probably an ODESSA agent and you’ve come down with a social disease, as planned. See a doctor before you see me again.»
Noel took her hand. There was no humor in his voice when he spoke. «The ODESSA’S no concern of ours. Neither is the Rache. That’s one—or two—of the things I learned in Berlin. It’s doubtful either of them knows anything about Geneva.»
Helden was stunned. «But what about Beaumont? You said he was ODESSA, that he followed you to Rio.»
«I think he is ODESSA, and he did follow me, but not because of Geneva. He’s tied in with Graff. Somehow he found out I was looking for Johann von Tiebolt; that was why he followed me. Not Geneva. I’ll know more when I speak to your brother tomorrow. Anyway, Beaumont’ll be out of the picture in a few days. Kessler’s taking care of it. He said he’d make a call to someone in the Bonn government.»
«It’s that simple?»
«It’s not that difficult. Any hint of ODESSA, especially in the military, is enough to start a battery of inquiries. Beaumont’ll be pulled in.»
«If it’s not the ODESSA, or the Rache, who is it?»
«That’s part of what I’ve got to tell you. I had to get rid of the mackinaw and the cap.»
«Oh?» Helden was confused by the non sequitur.
He told her why, playing down the violence in the dark alleyway. Then he described the conversation with Kessler, realizing as he came to the end that he could not omit the murder of the unknown man in the leather jacket. He would tell her brother about it tomorrow; to withhold it from Helden now would serve no purpose. When he had finished, she shuddered, pressing her fingers into the palm of her hand.
«How horrible. Did Kessler have any idea who he was, where he came from?»
«Not really. We went over everything he said a half-dozen times, trying to figure it out, but there wasn’t that much. In Kessler’s opinion he was part of a neo-Nazi group—descendants of the party, Kessler called them. A splinter faction that has no use for the ODESSA.»
«How would they know about the account in Geneva?»
«I asked Kessler that. He said that the sort of manipulations required to get that money out of Germany couldn’t have been kept as quiet as we think; that someone somewhere could have learned about it.»
«But Geneva is based on secrecy. Without it, it would collapse.»
«Then it’s a question of degree. When is a secret a secret? What separates confidential information from highly classified data? A handful of people found out about Geneva and want to stop us from getting the money and using it the way it’s supposed to be used. They want it for themselves, so they’re not going to expose it.»
«But if they’ve learned that much, they know they can’t get it.»
«Not necessarily.»
«Then they should be told!»
«I said as much to the man in the alley. I didn’t convince him. Even if I had, it wouldn’t make any difference now.»
«But don’t you see? Someone has to reach these people—whoever they are—and convince them they gain nothing by stopping you and my brother and Erich Kessler.»
Holcroft drank. «I’m not sure we should do that. Kessler said something that bothered me when I heard it, and it bothers me now. He said that we—the ‘we,’ I guess, meaning all of us who haven’t studied the subject that closely—never understood the hard-core Nazi. From the Nazi’s point of view, it wasn’t simply a question of how he could benefit; it was just as important to him that others do not benefit. Kessler called it the ‘essential destructiveness.’»
Helden’s frown returned. «So if they’re told, they’ll go after you. They’ll kill the three of you, because without you, there’s no Geneva.»
«Not for another generation. That’s motive enough. The money goes back into the vaults for another thirty years.»
Helden brought her hand to her mouth. «Wait a minute; there’s something terribly wrong. They’ve tried to kill you. You. From the beginning … you.»
Holcroft shook his head. «We can’t be certain—»
«Not certain?» broke in Helden. «My God, what more do you want? You showed me your jacket. There was the strychnine on that plane, the shots in Rio. What more do you want?»
«I want to know who was really behind those things. That’s why I have to talk to your brother.»
«What can Johann tell you?»
«Whom he killed in Rio.» Helden started to object; he took her hand again. «Let me explain. I think we’re in the middle—I’m in the middle—of two fights, neither having anything to do with the other. Whatever happened to your brother in Rio has nothing to do with Geneva. That’s where I made my mistake. I tied everything into Geneva. It’s not; it’s separate.»
«I tried to tell you that,» said Helden.
«I was slow. But then, no one’s ever fired a gun at me, or tried to poison me, or shoved a knife in my stomach. Those kinds of things play hell with your thinking process. At least they do mine.»
«Johann is a man of many interests, Noel,» she said. «He can be very charming, very personable, but he can also be reticent. It’s part of him. He’s lived a strange life. Sometimes I think of him as a gadfly. He darts quickly from one place to another, one interest to another, always brilliantly, always leaving his mark, but not always wishing that mark to be recognized.»
«‘He’s here, he’s there, he’s everywhere,’» interrupted Holcroft. «You’re describing some sort of Scarlet Pimpernel.»
«Exactly. Johann may not tell you what happened in Rio.»
«He has to. I have to know.»
«Since it has nothing to do with Geneva, he may disagree.»
«Then I’ll try to convince him. We have to find out how vulnerable he is.»
«Let’s say he is vulnerable. What happens then?»
«He’d be disqualified from taking part in Geneva. We know he killed someone. You heard a man—a wealthy, influential man, you thought—say he wanted to see your brother hanged for murder. I know he tangled with Graff, and that means the ODESSA. He ran for his life. He took you and your sister with him, but he ran for his life. He’s mixed up in a lot of complications; people are after him, and it’s not unreasonable to think he could be blackmailed. That could shake Geneva; it could corrupt it.»