«You’ll do what?» Ellis said.
«You heard me, Willie. I’ll pay you five hundred dollars and your expenses for one, maybe two days in Geneva. All I want you to do is take my mother back to London.»
«I’m a dreadful nanny. And from what you’ve told me about your mother, she’s the last person in the world who needs a traveling companion.»
«She does now. Someone was following her. I’ll tell you about it when I see you in Geneva. How about it, Willie? Will you do it?»
«Of course. But stuff your five hundred. I’m sure your mother and I will have far more in common than we ever did. You may, however, pick up the tabs. I travel well, as you know.»
«While we’re on the subject, travel with a little cool, will you, please? I want you to call the Hôtel d’Accord in Geneva and make a reservation for late this morning. The first plane should get you there by nine-thirty.»
«I’ll be on my best behavior, befitting Louis Vuitton luggage. Perhaps a minor title…»
«Willie!»
«I know the Swiss better than you. They adore titles; they reek of money, and money’s their mistress.»
«I’ll phone you around ten, ten-thirty. I want to use your room until I know what’s going on.»
«That’s extra,» said Willie Ellis. «See you in Geneva.»
Holcroft had decided to call on Willie because there was no one else he could think of who would not ask questions. Ellis was not the outrageous fool he pretended to be. Althene could do far worse for an escort out of Switzerland.
And she had to get out. The covenant’s enemy had killed her husband; it would kill her, too. Because Geneva was where it was going to happen. In two or three days a meeting would take place, and papers would be signed, and money would be transferred to Zurich. The covenant’s enemy would try everything to abort those negotiations. His mother could not stay in Geneva. There would be violence in Geneva; he could feel it.
He drove south to Dijon, arriving well after midnight. The small city was asleep, and as he passed through the dark streets, he knew he needed sleep, too; tomorrow he had to be alert. More alert than he had ever been in his life. He continued driving until he was back in the countryside and stopped the rented car on the side of a road. He smoked a cigarette, then crushed it out and put his feet on the seat, his head against the window, cushioned by his raincoat.
In a few hours he’d be at the border, crossing into Switzerland with the first wave of morning traffic. Once in Switzerland … He couldn’t think anymore. The mist was closing in on him; his breathing was low and heavy. And then the face appeared, strong, angular, so unfamiliar yet so recognizable to him now.
It was the face of Heinrich Clausen, and he was calling to him, telling him to hurry. The agony would be over soon; amends would be made.
He slept.
Erich Kessler watched as his younger brother, Hans, showed the airline security officer his medical bag. Since the Olympics of ’72, when the Palestinians were presumed to have flown into Munich with dismantled rifles and submachine guns, the airport’s security measures had tripled.
It was a wasted effort, mused Erich. The Palestinians’ weapons had been brought to Munich by Wolfsschanze—their Wolfsschanze.
Hans laughed with the airline official, sharing a joke, But, thought Erich, there would be no such jokes in Geneva, for there would be no inspection by the airlines or by customs or by anyone else. The first deputy of canton Genève would see to it. One of Munich’s most highly regarded doctors, a specialist in internal medicine, was arriving as his guest.
Hans was all that and more, thought Erich, as his brother approached him at the gate. Hans was a medium-sized bull with enormous charm. A superb soccer player who captained his district team and later ministered to the opponents he had injured.
It was odd, thought Erich, but Hans was far better equipped than he to be the elder son. Save for the accident of time, it would have been Hans who worked with Johann von Tiebolt, and Erich, the quiet scholar, would have been the subordinate. Once, in a moment of self-doubt, he had said as much to Johann.
Von Tiebolt would not hear of it. A pure intellectual was demanded. A man who lived a bloodless life—someone never swayed by reasons of the heart, by intemperance. Had that not been proved by those infrequent but vital moments when he—the quiet scholar—had stood up to the Tinamou and stated his reservations? Reservations that resulted in a change of strategy?
Yes, it was true, but it was not the essential truth. That truth was something Johann did not care to face: Hans was nearly Von Tiebolt’s equal. If they clashed, Johann might die.
That was the opinion of the quiet, bloodless intellectual.
«Everything proceeds,» said Hans, as they walked through the gate to the plane. «The American is as good as dead, and no laboratory will trace the cause.»
Helden got off the train at Neuchâtel. She stood on the platform, adjusting her eyes to the shafts of sunlight that shot down from the roof of the railroad station.
She knew she should mingle with the crowds that scrambled off the train, but for a moment she had to stand still and breathe the air. She had spent the past three hours in the darkness of a freight car, crouched behind crates of machinery. A door had been opened electronically for precisely sixty seconds at Besançon, and she had gone inside. At exactly five minutes to noon the door was opened again; she had reached Neuchâtel unseen. Her legs ached and her head pounded, but she made it. It had cost a great deal of money.
The air filled her lungs. She picked up her suitcase and started for the doors of the Neuchâtel station. The village of Près-du-Lac was on the west side of the lake, no more than twenty miles south. She found a taxi driver willing to make the trip.
The ride was jarring and filled with turns, but it was like a calm, floating glide for her. She looked out the window at the rolling hills and the blue waters of the lake. The rich scenery had the effect of suspending everything. It gave her the precious moments she needed to try to understand. What had Heir Oberst meant when he wrote that he had arranged for her to be near him because he had believed she was «an arm of an enemy»? An enemy he had «waited thirty years to confront.» What enemy was that? And why had he chosen her?
What had she done? Or not done? Was it again the terrible dilemma? Damned for what she was and damned for what she wasn’t? When in God’s name would it stop?
Herr Oberst knew he was going to die. He had prepared her for his death as surely as if he had announced it, making sure she had the money to buy secret passage to Switzerland, to a man named Werner Gerhardt in Neuchâtel. Who was he? What was he to Klaus Falkenheim that he was to be contacted only upon the latter’s death?
The coin of Wolfsschanze has two sides.
The taxi driver interrupted her thoughts. «The inn’s down by the shoreline,» he said. «It’s not much of a hotel.»
«It will do, I’m sure.»
The room overlooked the waters of Lake Neuchâtel. It was so peaceful that Helden was tempted to sit at the window and do nothing but think about Noel, because when she thought about him, she felt … comfortable.
But there was a Werner Gerhardt to find. The telephone directory of Près-du-Lac had no such listing; God knew when it was last updated. But it was not a large village; she would begin casually with the concierge. Perhaps the name was familiar to him.
It was, but not in a way that gave her any confidence.
«Mad Gerhardt?» said the obese man, sitting in a wicker chair behind the counter. «You bring him greetings from old friends? You should bring him instead a potion to unscramble his doddering brains. He won’t understand a thing you say.»