Butcher of Belgrade

Ten

It was about noon by the time I returned to Central Station in Belgrade on a second class milk train. I took a taxi along Sarajevoska street over to Kneza Mihajla Boulevard, passed the imposing National Museum, made a couple of turns to be sure we were not being followed, and then went directly to the Majestic Hotel on Obilicev Venac. Ursula was very relieved to see me.

“Oh, Nick!” she said, throwing those soft arms around my neck when I entered her room. “I’ve been pacing the floor. Where the hell have you been.”

“I had to take care of some unfinished business. You didn’t think I would leave you alone in this wicked Communist capital, did you?” I grinned.

She closed the door behind me. I noticed that she had checked into a very elegant room at a modest rate and that she had a fine view of the street. But now her thoughts were only of Hans Richter.

“Did you find out anything?” she asked.

I lit a cigarette and offered her one, but she declined. I regarded her seriously now. She was pretty tense. “I think I know where Richter is hiding out,” I told her. “Unless he panicked and fled the city.”

“Is it near here?”

I took a long drag on the cigarette and held it for a moment. “Yes, it’s not far from here.”

“Where? A hotel?”

I studied Ursula’s face for a moment before I spoke. This seemed the appropriate time to tell her about the monitor. I either had to mention it to her or leave her out of the affair completely, and the latter alternative did not seem fair.

“A hotel, yes,” I said slowly.

“Which one?” She moved to a telephone on a night table. “I will call the police and have them meet us there.”

I shook my head. “No, Ursula.”

She looked at me with mild surprise in her lovely blue eyes. Then she put the phone back down. “Why not?”

“Ursula,” I began, “I’m going to level with you. Richter has stolen an electronic device from the British government, a U.S. device that is important to the security of the West. He has this device with him. At least, he had it when he left Central Station through the window.”

She thought back a moment. “The radio?” she asked.

“Yes, the radio. I’m pretty sure the device is hidden inside it.”

“That is why he carried the radio around with him on the train.”

I smiled. “That’s what I believe at the moment. Now, the Yugoslav police would be happy to extradite him to West Germany to stand trial for war crimes. The Communists are always happy to see a man from the Third Reich caught. But I think you can understand that they might look differently on the matter of returning the electronic device to me.”

“I understand Nick,” she said.

“I tried to separate Richter from his radio at the station, but I was not successful,” I continued. “If I had been, my assignment would have been finished. Now, I still have that radio to recover.”

“But, Nick, I can’t arrest Richter without the police,” she told me. “There is a lot of red tape involved in getting him turned over to the custody of our government. The police must be involved.”

“I understand,” I said. “But remember that West Germany is one of the free countries that will suffer if this device reaches the hands of KGB. As a matter of fact, I believe that Richter expects to conclude a sale of the device with a Russian right here in Belgrade. They may have done so already. At any rate, Ursula, I’m asking you to give me a crack at Richter and his radio before we call in the Yugoslavs for help in his arrest.”

She thought a moment. “I want to help you capture Richter.”

“Yes, you may come along,” I agreed.

She smiled. “All right, Nick. I will wait before I call the police, but they may have ideas of their own, of course. I think I saw a man watching this hotel. I must assume that they can’t quite trust me.”

“That makes sense,” I said. “You are not, after all, a good Communist.”

She smiled that broad German smile, at me, and the blue eyes flashed. “I am not even a good girl,” she said.

“I’d have to disagree with that.”

She was wearing a robe that tied at the waist, because she had just come from the shower. She untied the robe now and let it fall open — she was nude underneath. “I suppose I had better get dressed,” she said.

I looked at her curves hungrily. “I suppose.”

The robe dropped to the floor. I let my eyes travel over the thrusting breasts, and small waist, and the sweep of milky hips and thighs. I remembered Eva on the train, and I knew that Eva had triggered something inside me that was now being caressed and nurtured by the sight of Ursula.

“On the other hand,” she said, moving to close the distance between us, “if Richter is at that hotel now, he will probably be there just a little longer.”

“Probably,” I said.

She began nibbling at my ear. And I let her start undressing me.

Ursula was building a fire in me that promised to rage out of control very soon. I helped her take the rest of my clothing off, and then I took her to the big double bed across the room. We lay down together, and the next thing I knew, she was moving over on me in the male position.

Her breasts hung down over my chest in lovely pendulous arcs. She let herself down closer to me, and the tips of her breasts rubbed gently across my chest as she kissed my face and neck with her moist lips.

She moved down to my abdomen, planting kisses delicately, and the fire burned in my groin. Then she moved further down, caressing with the full warm lips, until I could stand it no longer.

“Now, liebling?” she asked.

“Now,” I answered huskily.

I pushed her over on the bed and straddled her, breathless, eager. The milky thighs came up and surrounded me, and I remember feeling them lock securely behind me as we made union. The fire erupted into a volcanic holocaust. Then there were sweet smells and lovely sounds and hot flesh as we reached a climax.

When I got a look at the Sava Hotel, I realized why Richter had chosen it. It would best be described as a flea-trap in the States — an old, decrepit building that looked as if it should have been pulled down long ago in the old section of town. The sign outside the place was so weather-beaten that one could pass it without realizing it was a hotel. It looked like the kind of place where the management would look the other way for questionable guests.

The hotel had only twenty rooms, and I could see from the number of keys placed in the mail boxes behind the desk that only a half dozen were taken. I was not surprised when the sleazy Yugoslav desk clerk did not ask to see our passports, but merely took their numbers. He considered it only a formality to satisfy the police.

While the clerk came around the desk to take my one piece of luggage, I glanced at the mail boxes again and memorized those that revealed occupancy of particular rooms. Then we climbed the stairs with the clerk. When he had opened the door and had put down my luggage, I tipped him.

Just as the clerk was leaving, a door down the hall opened, and Hans Richter came out into the corridor. I shoved Ursula back from the doorway and hid from sight myself. A moment later I sneaked a look and saw Richter and two men standing in the corridor with their backs to me. They were preparing to leave another man, whose room they had just left. The other man was Ivan Lubyanka.

Apparently Richter had sent Lubyanka to this place when he had left the Orient Express at Pivka. Now, even though Richter appeared to have found a different hiding place because of the incident at the station, he had come here with these men, who were obviously Topcon agents, to discuss the sale of the monitor device with the Russian.

Richter was not carrying the radio. Maybe he did not trust the KGB. He and his cohorts walked down the corridor to the stairway as Lubyanka closed his door.

I turned to Ursula. “It’s Richter and his friends,” I said. “Follow them and see where they go. Try not to get yourself killed. In the meantime, I’m going to pay a visit to a Russian friend of mine down the hall. I’ll meet you at the Majestic at three. Wait an hour after that, and if I don’t show, you’re on your own.”

She looked into my face for a brief, tender moment. “All right, Nick.”

I smiled. “See you later.”

“Yes.”

Ursula disappeared down the corridor after Richter and his men.

A few minutes later, I knocked on the door of Lubyanka’s room. After a short pause, Lubyanka’s voice came from the other side of the door. “Yes?”

I was pretty good at dialects and voices, especially after I had had a chance to hear them, so I cleared my throat and tried my best to sound like Hans Richter.

“Blücher,” I said.

The lock on the door clicked as I pulled out the Luger. When the door opened and I saw Lubyanka’s surprised face, I did not wait for an invitation to enter the room. I kicked at the door savagely and smashed it into the room. It hit Lubyanka in the chest and head and knocked him to the floor.

Lubyanka started for his gun on a distant table, but I stopped him. “Hold it right there.”

He turned and saw the Luger aimed at his head. Then glanced at the distance between him and the Webley and decided it was a lousy risk.

“It is you again,” he said bitterly.

“I’m afraid so, old man. All right, on your feet. And keep away from your plaything on the table.”

Lubyanka rose slowly, blood dripping from his cheek and mouth. His lip was already swelling. I moved to the door and closed it, keeping an eye on the KGB man every moment. His eyes held a great dislike for me.

“Now,” I said, “you and I are going to have a nice talk.”

“We have nothing to talk about,” he answered grimly.

“I think we do.”

He grunted and moved his hand to the cut on his cheek. “You have come to the wrong man, I’m afraid.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But if I have, it will be too bad for you.” I watched his face as the impact of that statement sunk in.

“We haven’t made a deal yet,” he told me. “Consequently, I do not have what you are looking for.”

“If Richter still has it, where does he keep it?” I asked.

“Richter?”

“Excuse the lapse. He’s Horst Blücher, to you.”

Lubyanka thought about that a moment. “I do not have any idea where the device is. He is very secretive and evasive.”

“Maybe he doesn’t trust you, Lubyanka,” I said, needling him a little.

He gave me a look. “I do not trust him.”

The corner of my mouth moved. It always gave me a little pleasure to see two unpleasant people trying to outsmart each other. “Well, there is one thing for sure, Lubyanka. You know where to contact him. And I want you to tell me that.”

Lubyanka had moved over to an unmade bed. I watched him closely and kept the Luger trained on him. “He has not told me where he is staying,” he said slowly.

“You’re lying, Lubyanka. And that will get you a 9mm slug in the head.” I moved closer to him. “I want the truth, and I want it now. Where can I find Richter?”

Lubyanka’s eyes suddenly looked flat, desperate. Surprising me, he grabbed a big pillow from the bed and turned toward me with it in front of him. I had no idea what he was doing, so I took no chances. I fired, and the Luger exploded in the small room.

The slug was buried in the thick pillow and never reached to Lubyanka’s chest. In the meantime, Lubyanka hurled himself at me, still holding the pillow between us. I raised the level of my aim and fired again at his head, but my shot narrowly missed as he fell on me.

Lubyanka hit at my gun arm and knocked it high, but I still held the gun. Now the pillow was gone, and Lubyanka was twisting violently at my arm with both hands. We hit against a wall, and I lost the gun.

Then we both slid to the floor, struggling for dominance. I threw a fist into Lubyanka’s already bloody face, and he managed to return the blow before breaking away from me. Then he was reaching for the Webley that was now near him on the table.

He grabbed the gun before I could reach him, but he could not get at the trigger assembly in time to fire it. When I reached him, he hit out savagely with the gun, striking me across the side of the head with the heavy barrel.

I fell back near a window, against the wall. Lubyanka then got to his feet and pointed the Webley at me again, but I found the strength to grab at his gun hand and pull him before he could fire. He sailed past me and crashed through the window. The glass shattered loudly and rained down around me as I turned and watched Lubyanka’s body hurtle into the open air outside — his arms were spread wide, as he grasped for something to save him.

There was a short silence as Lubyanka fell, then I heard a scream. I leaned out through the broken glass and saw that he had hit a second floor balcony. He was impaled on the pickets of an iron balustrade, facing up with his eyes still open, and two of the pickets protruded through his chest and abdomen.

I swore at myself. Lubyanka would tell me nothing now. Retrieving Wilhelmina, I quickly left the small room and hurried down the corridor just as the sound of footsteps came from the front stairs. I avoided them by using the rear service stairs to reach the street.