'Where the hell have you been?' said Tucker.
'Have you seen…?'
'Yeah. They're both in Trimmler's room. His wife's in there, too. You look like you've been in a marathon.'
Adam grinned, his breath short and the sweat running down his face. 'I got left behind.'
'So where've you been?'
'You know damn well where I've been. Watching Trimmler drowning his sorrows. Our friend Goodenache just told him about Mitzer.'
'Well, that, and the booze, should keep him in his room. I'll take over now. You rest up.'
'Okay.'
'Did nothing else happen out there?'
'No.' Adam decided not to mention the watchers downstairs. It would only alarm Tucker. And there was another way of dealing with the problem.
Adam caught the lift down to the lobby.
'Hello, chaps,' he greeted the two in his best laid back English as he entered the coffee shop. He pulled up a chair and joined them.
'Well, what you doing here, boy?' asked a surprised Fruit Juice.
'I stay here. What about you? This is a bit out of your province, isn't it?'
'Everybody needs new space. Even those who ain't got no use for this earth.'
'I see you've got a new hairstyle.'
'Street cut. The other's for the tourists.'
Adam signalled the waiter over and ordered a coffee.
'I don't wanna appear pushy,' said Fruit Juice, 'but this was a private meeting.'
'But I paid a thousand dollars.'
'That was yesterday, boy. You gotta start again.'
'Another dollar, another day?'
'Something like that.'
'Heya, you could be the snake this time,' interjected a leering Goat Face. 'Just slide into that nice warm pussy. Hot and steamy. That what you looking for?'
'I tried that. I was watching the same sex show you were. Saw four people performing on a stage on Bourbon Street. Naked. About an hour ago.'
'Weren't me,' Goat Face replied as a quick look of concern passed between the two black men.
'Don't be embarrassed about it. We all do these things, have a need for the seamy side of life.'
'I said it weren't me.'
'I know what I saw. There were two of us there. Me and an older chap. Grey haired, German. Left with a blonde in pink satin hot pants. Remember him?'
'You got the wrong man,' shrugged Goat Face. 'But then, we all look the same to you, don't we?'
'Time to go,' said Fruit Juice, standing up. 'You sure got bad manners, boy. Private means private.'
'Sorry chaps. My misunderstanding. Why don't you stay and have another coffee. On me.' Adam knew they wouldn't stay. Whatever mischief they had planned, probably to rob Trimmler, was blown now.
'Keep away from what don't concern you, boy. This ain't a town you wanna get into trouble.'
He turned and started to walk away with Goat Face a few steps behind.
'Keep away from the dirty shows,' Adam said to their disappearing backs. The big clock overhead the lobby clicked past nine forty five.
Tucker was positioned back in the hallway outside Trimmler's suite. Adam decided not to warn him again about being an obvious target. You could give them a handkerchief, but you couldn't blow their noses for them.
'I'm going to have a workout, then something to eat,' he said. 'I'll take over about twelve.'
'Billie was looking for you.'
'I'll be down there if she wants me.'
He went to his room, changed and took the lift down to the fitness centre. It was empty and he settled down to his series of exercises, warming his muscles first with gentle movements before entering his strenuous and punishing schedule.
When pain came, that point when muscles cramp in torture and refuse to be driven any further, Adam, as always, turned to Marcus. He drew from his strength, knew it was Marcus who drove him on to cross the barrier. He could feel him, somewhere deep inside, giving him that extra power that lifted his mental and physical being above most others.
The pain eased, his strength grew, and Marcus filled his vision, his senses, his whole being. The two became one, fused in their life and death inamorata.
Ch. 44
The black Mercedes 300 SL, chauffeur driven by a Stermabeitalung in a dark grey suit, bounced up the Strasse Otto Buckwitz. One of the main roads leading northwards towards the airport, the Strasse Otto Buckwitz was like many of the thoroughfares in what was once East Germany. Occasionally potholed, heavily cambered and uneven in construction, it was, in essence, a boneshaker.
In the back, like any two ordinary business men, sat Peter Frick and Helmut Kragan. They were on their way to a meeting, but their business was anything but ordinary.
'Did you contact all the members of the Council?' asked Frick.
'Except Lieder. He's on a skiing holiday in Val d'Isere. But I've made arrangements for him to be reached and flown back for the meeting.'
'Good. Have we had any comments from them?'
'About Mitzer. Nothing.No. I expect they will comment at the meeting.'
'We must keep them under control. Especially the older ones. Now is not the time for panic.'
'They're the ones least likely to panic. They've waited a long time for this.'
'I meant that my position must be protected. Mitzer was a romantic, a dreamer of the past. But he had influence. His contacts in the business community were second to none. He will be difficult to replace. The others know that. Somehow, I must reassure them that we can still proceed.'
'There are other industrialists sympathetic to our cause.'
'Not as powerful as Mitzer.'
'I can prepare a list of those who have shown an interest in joining us.'
'Good. But first we must clear it with the council. Make them feel that they are actively chasing Mitzer's replacement. The involvement will make them think of the future, not of the past.'
'I'll have the list ready for the meeting.'
The Mercedes had followed the line of blue prefabricated concrete slabs, the long four kilometre wall that separated the Dresdener Heidi from the Strasse Otto Buckwitz. The car pulled off the road and stopped at a gatehouse with double steel doors that blocked any unwarranted entry into the Heidi.
A Stermabeitalung in a grey suit, like that of the driver, saluted the car and signalled his colleague to swing the gate open. The Mercedes moved through the gate and into the Heidi.
The Dresdener Heidi was the city's greatest park until the Russian tanks rolled in in 1945. Within weeks they had ringed it off and turned it into their barracks. Over the years, until their withdrawal in the 1990's, they had built a vast tank training ground through the woods and parkland, thrown up a series of yellow and black painted apartment blocks, and built a 4,000 foot runway from which they flew small transport aircraft and helicopter gunships. Apart from the Army, it had also housed the KGB and other military intelligence. It had become a war zone, a death fort in a conquered city.
Large tracts of the Dresdener Heidi had been snapped up by developers when Germany was reunified. One of those developers had been Ritz Frankfurte Gmb, a subsidiary property company privately owned by Grob Mitzer. It had taken the largest part of the Heidi, had sealed it off and kept it very much as it was under the Russians.
The official story was that it was an investment for the future and would be developed as the need required. Part of it was leased to a company that ran action and survival courses for executives and others who felt they would benefit from the service.