“Did you finish your call?” Gerd asked her.
“Have I hung up the phone?”
He looked at her. “Yes.”
“Then I guess I’m finished.” She reached for the cup that Alex handed her. After a sip she raised an eyebrow. “This isn’t their coffee.”
“Sure it is. I threw half of it out, though, and mixed it with hot chocolate.”
“Oh.” Teren took another sip and nodded. “Good idea.”
“Thanks.” Alex sat down in the other chair.
Gerd seemed content to lean against the wall. He was watching Teren very carefully. Teren was acting differently towards him today, and he thought he knew why.
“So, Teren, I heard from our surveillance team that you found the bugs.”
She looked up at him. “You never could hide them worth a damn, Gerd.”
Alex and Teren had found several tiny listening devices in their hotel suite. The CIA agent had grown angrier with each one she found. Alex had no wish to step between Teren and her intended victim, and she stayed silent for the moment.
“Want to tell me why you were so interested in our dinner conversation?”
Gerd shrugged. “I know what you’ve been trained to do for the last few years. If there’s going to be an assassination on German soil, I want to know about it.”
“I told you it wasn’t an assignment.”
“So you said. I have only your word on that.”
“And since when isn’t my word good enough, Gerd?”
“There were rumors you were off on your own, Teren, but then we got a call that said you still had CIA clearance. What were we to think? Besides, the bugs were planted before our conversation last night.”
Teren nodded. “I see.” She sat up straight in her chair, and pinned him with her gaze. “It won’t happen again, will it.” She wasn’t asking, and Gerd knew it.
“No.” She didn’t blink, or speak for several minutes, and Gerd began to sweat. “No, Teren, it won’t.”
“Good.” She drained the last of her chocolate coffee, and set the cup down with a thump that seemed louder than paper could make. “Now. Tell me what you know about Jurgen von Odbert.”
His eyes widened at the name, and both blonde eyebrows went up. “He is the retired leader of St. Luther’s Evangelical Church. Why?”
“Do you know how old he is?”
“No. I believe probably in his eighties or so.”
Teren nodded. “So, that would mean he was, what, in his twenties, early thirties, during World War Two?”
Gerd nodded, a frown line forming between his eyebrows. “Where are you going with this, Teren?”
“Well, I just thought it was really interesting that the first record of anyone named von Odbert appears in 1950. The same year that a Nazi named Werner Hoppe was last seen, in Zurich, Switzerland.”
The blonde man leaned over, his meaty hands planted firmly on the desk in front of Teren. “Are you insinuating that von Odbert, one of the most respected men in Munich today, was a Nazi?”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely not.”
Teren stood up, her face inches from Gerd’s. “Then tell me why, in 1950, Werner Hoppe turned over to Jurgen von Odbert a Swiss bank account worth millions of dollars?”
Alex could see the shock in Gerd’s eyes.
“That’s a lie.”
“I have a copy of the signed bank records. That’s why we were in Switzerland. A CIA contact in the Swiss banking industry was able to provide us with copies of the original papers. Hoppe signed the account over to von Odbert, who placed it in the hands of the Evangelische Kirche des Heiligen Luther in 1985, with himself as the principle signer.”
Gerd relaxed slightly. “So, if what you are saying is true, then he is turning money he made illegally into something that will do good for the German people.” He shrugged. I see nothing wrong with that.”
Alex couldn’t believe she’d just heard that. “Nothing wrong? That money doesn’t belong to the German people. It was stolen from the Jews of Europe, and other —”
“Spare me the sanctimonious garbage of how the Jews were wronged. I know what happened, I am German.”
“And I’m Jewish, and if you—” Alex stopped when Teren’s hand dropped onto her shoulder. She clenched her fists and sat down.
“Gerd. I can prove that the account was an illegal one, started by a Nazi war criminal. And I can prove that it’s being used to fund Neo-Nazi activities.”
Gerd laughed, but nervously. “Impossible. Absolutely impossible.”
“I have the records. Odbert passed the reins of the account to Franz Eisenbein.”
“That’s natural. He is the new leader of the church.”
“I know. He is the principle signer, and he has a co-signer named Stephen Radcliffe. Radcliffe is an American, and he signed off on a bank transfer that gave five million dollars to a man named John Treville. Treville used part of that five million to pay George Mather to kill me and Perry.”
Gerd’s mouth was hanging open, and his lips quivered, but he didn’t say anything.
“Now, Alex and I are —”
“I am a member of St. Luther’s.”
Teren stared at him. “You’re what?”
“I am a member of St. Luther’s Evangelical Church. I have been for two years.”
Alex started to jump back up, and it was only Teren’s firm hand that kept her in her chair.
“Gerd, what are you going to do?”
He wouldn’t look at her. “There is nothing I can do. My orders are that I am not to interfere.”
“Right. But that’s direct interference. What about indirect?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know very well what I mean. One word of this in the wrong ear and Alex and I are dead.”
Gerd straightened up fully, and started to turn away. “I don’t —”
Teren was over the desk and shoving him against the wall. “You don’t what, Gerd? Don’t believe me?”
“Let go of me,” Gerd growled between his clenched jaws.
“I should kill you right now.” Teren’s voice was flat and emotionless. “Give me a good reason not to, Gerd.”
“If you do it, you won’t leave here alive.”
She smiled at him, but there was no humor in it. “Of course I will. It’s what I’ve been trained for these last few years, Gerd, or did you forget that?”
Teren’s hand had begun to press harder against his throat and his words came out with a higher pitch and a gasping breath. “Teren, let me go. I won’t repeat anything that has been said in here. You have my word.”
She stared at him, watching his struggle to breathe. His hands remained still, one on her arm, and the other flat against the wall. Teren had expected, almost hoped, that he’d go for his gun, but he knew better. Finally, she began to ease the pressure off of his windpipe. He stayed still as she backed away.
Keeping her eyes on him, she opened the door and waved Alex through.
“Don’t make me sorry I left you alive, Gerd.”
Then she left the room.
“D you trust Gerd?”
“Fuck no.”
Teren was driving their rental car as they headed for the address of one Florian Kirchner.
“So, what’s the plan?”
“Same as before, but not as much time. If possible, I want to be on a plane back home tomorrow afternoon.”
Alex’s eyes went wide. “Really? That fast?”
“Yeah. We just need to send a telegram when we’re about to get on the plane. We’ll be met at Dulles by two CIA operatives. They’ll take us to a safe house just outside D.C.”
“You think they’ll try to kill us even on American soil?”
“Possible, but doubtful.”
“Then why would we need to be at a safe house in the States?” Alex asked with confused look.
“Well, I may not. All charges against me have been dropped. Seems I made enough of an impression on the cop I kidnapped in Philly. When Davies wouldn’t listen to him, he took his story to the media, telling them I was with him when the cops were killed, and he had stayed in visual contact with me throughout the firefight.”
“So, you’re clear?”