Double Jeopardy

CHAPTER 24

Tuesday June 2

Name: Frederick Anthony Howard. Nationality: British. Date of birth: October 12 1933. Place of birth: Chelsea, London.

Career record: Joined Foreign Office, June 1958… Appointed to Intelligence Section, May 1962… Transferred to Paris Embassy, May 1974 as Intelligence Officer… Owing to pressure of work took six weeks' special leave, January 1978… 'Appointed head of SIS, May 1980.

Studying the dossiers once again with McNeil in his Maida Vale flat, Tweed skip-read Howard's details. In any case he knew them from memory. He handed the dossier back.

'Anything?' she asked.

'I don't know. I'm intrigued by that special sick leave he took while in Paris and which he spent in Vienna. Intrigued because he has never mentioned the fact…'

`You'd have expected him to?'

`I'm not sure.' Tweed took off his glasses and chewed on the end of one of the frame supports. 'Despite his apparent extrovert personality if you listen to him carefully he is highly vocal but says little.'

`A natural diplomat?'

`Now you're being cynical,' Tweed admonished. 'But the Vienna incident reminds me of someone

`Who?'

`Kim Philby.' Tweed replaced his glasses. `It was in Vienna that Philby was first contaminated by the plague- by a woman. So that leaves only Erich Stoller, thank God – I'm beginning to see double. Drag out his file and we'll see what we have there…'

At the entrance to Reinhard Dietrich's schloss the noise was ear-splitting, the source of the noise terrifying. A pack of German shepherd dogs snarled and leapt towards Martel, restrained only by the leashes held by the guards. The Englishman immediately recognised Erwin Vinz. The German walked forward and stopped close to the visitor.

`Yes?' he enquired, his slate-grey eyes studying Martel. `Philip Johnson of The Times. Mr Dietrich expects me…' 'Why do you arrive on foot?' Vinz demanded.

'Because my bloody car broke down a couple of miles back. You think I'd walk all the way from Munich? And I'm late for my interview – so could we stop wasting time?'

`Credentials?'

Vinz extended a hand and took the press card Martel handed him. Somewhere high in the warmth of the azure sky there was the distant murmur of a helicopter. It reminded Martel of the humming of a bee. Vinz returned the card.

`We will drive to the schloss

He led the way to the large wrought-iron gates which were opened and then closed behind them with the dogs and their handlers on the inside. The guards were dressed in civilian clothes and wore Delta symbols in their lapels.

Vinz climbed in behind the wheel of a Land-Rover-type vehicle and gestured for Martel to occupy the front passenger seat. When they were moving Martel glanced back and saw the rear seats were occupied by two burly guards.

He lit a cigarette and made a display of checking his watch. As he did so he looked surreptitiously into the blue vault of the sky over Bavaria. The tiny shape of a helicopter was receding into a speck.

It was a good five minutes' drive through parkland dotted with a variety of trees before they turned a corner in the curving drive and the schloss appeared. It was not reassuring – a grey-stone walled edifice like a small fortress complete with moat, drawbridge and raised portcullis gate in the arched entrance.

Vinz slowed down as they bumped over the wooden drawbridge, crossing the wide moat of green water. They passed under the archway and the main building came into view, enclosing a cobbled courtyard. At the top of a flight of steps a man and a woman waited to greet their visitor.

Reinhard Dietrich wore his favourite country garb, riding clothes and breeches tucked into gleaming boots. In his right hand he held a cigar. His ice-cold eyes stared at Martel as he dismounted from the vehicle, but it was the woman who gave the Englishman a shock.

Dark-haired and sleek, she was dressed in a trouser suit with her jacket open exposing her full figure. There was a half-smile on the finely chiselled face, a smile with a hint of triumph. Klara Beck was obviously pleased to see their guest.

They led him inside the open doors of the schloss into a vast hall with a highly polished floor scattered with priceless Persian rugs. Vinz and his two henchmen had produced Luger pistols and escorted him across the hall into a large library overlooking the moat.

Martel was faintly amused at this display of weaponry – somehow it symbolised the poor imitation of Hitler's bodyguard Dietrich was aping – and the reaction helped to quell the cold fear growing at the pit of his stomach. He had not anticipated Klara Beck.

`Stay with us, Vinz – just to ensure our guest preserves his manners.' Dietrich gestured with the cigar he had lit. 'The other two can go dig the garden…'

Wary of Vinz's Luger, Martel took out his pack slowly, inserted a cigarette in his holder and lit it. He sat down in a leather, button-backed chair in front of a huge Empire desk. An ashtray of Steuben crystal was filled with cigar butts.

'You may sit down, Martel,' Dietrich said sarcastically. 'We can dispense with the charade of Philip Johnson, I suggest…'

'We all seem to be making ourselves at home…'

Martel gestured to Klara Beck who had perched herself on the arm of his chair. She crossed her legs and even the trousers could not disguise their excellent shape. Taking off her jacket, she revealed more of her superb breasts. Dietrich glared at her, went behind his desk and sank heavily into his chair, his voice harsh when he addressed his visitor.

'What suicidal motive drove you to come here? And don't tell me that if you're not away from the schloss in half an hour Stoller and his minions will rush to the rescue. I read the papers. The BND commissar is flying to Bonn – doubtless to escape the humiliation of witnessing my victory at the polls…'

'Your defeat..

Martel was watching Beck as he spoke and caught the flicker of surprise in her dark eyes. Surprise – not alarm or disbelief. Dietrich exploded.

'You bloody amateur! What do you know of politics in Germany? I hope you don't imagine you will leave this place alive? Where is the witness to prove you were ever inside the grounds, let alone the schloss? Why the hell did you come here…'

`To tell you that you are being conned, Dietrich,' Martel replied harshly. He ground out his half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray and lit another. 'You have been manipulated. Right from the start you've been a pawn in a game you were never equipped to play…'

The atmosphere in the library had changed. Martel could sense the change and, resting against the back of his chair, he was watching everyone in the room under the guise of an attitude of nonchalance. He could feel Beck's nervous reaction, the tensing of her muscles which subtly shifted the chair leather.

Vinz reacted differently. He tried to freeze his emotions but he shifted nervously from one foot to the other. Dietrich, who was no fool, noticed the movement. He frowned but concentrated his ire on Martel.

`Bloody hell! What are you talking about…'

`I'm talking about your betrayal,' Martel continued in the same even tone. 'Betrayal by someone you trusted. Why does Stoller keep locating the Delta arms dumps so easily and swiftly? He has an informant – that is the only answer…'

Vinz took a step forward and waved the Luger. 'You are asking for a mouthful of broken teeth…'

He got no further. Dietrich stood up and moved round his desk with surprising agility. With the back of his hand he struck Vinz across the face. The German stood very still as Dietrich stormed.

`Shut your trap! Who do you think is in charge here? Get out of this room and go fishing!'

Martel waited until Vinz had left and then went on speaking. `Ask yourself the question, Dietrich. Is there one other person only who knows the location of the dumps? If so, that has to be Stoller's informant. Maybe a series of anonymous phone calls? If you are wondering why, every newspaper headline reporting discovery of another dump swings the polls a few points more against you. I say you are being manipulated by a mastermind…'

There was a flurry of activity. The door into the library burst open and one of the guards rushed in. Dietrich glared at the intruder.

`What is it, Karl?'

'The gate. They have just phoned through. A convoy of cars is approaching the entrance – they think it is the police

Dietrich stood considering the news for a few seconds, staring at Martel. Then he barked out an order and two more men appeared from the hall through the open door.

`Put him in the cellar – he can shout his head off down there and no one will hear him. Search him first…'

He moved across to a bookcase and removed a volume. Behind it was a button which he pressed. A section slid back with a purr of hydraulics, an addition to the schloss no doubt built by his Stuttgart technicians. Martel carefully did not look at Beck as he extracted the smoked cigarette from his holder and stubbed out the butt in the messy ashtray.

'On your feet!'

Karl had spoken and his Luger was aimed point-blank. Beyond the dark well exposed by the secret door Martel could see a staircase curving down out of sight. He followed one of the guards across the shag carpet as Karl gestured with his gun, walking slowly. The muzzle was rammed into his back. As he stepped through the opening he heard Klara Beck speak urgently.

'Empty that ashtray – it contains his cigarette stubs…'

Trust lovely Klara not to overlook any little detail, the bitch. A smell of damp, of mustiness rose to meet him as he descended the spiral with the guard in front and Karl behind. Dietrich called out a final threat.

'Later you will talk – or we open the moat sluices and you drown slowly in that pit…'

At the bottom of the steps a doorway led into a stone-walled cellar. Karl thrust a hand against the small of his back and shoved him forward. He lost his balance, sprawled full-length on the floor. When he stood up he was alone and the door was closed and locked.

The BND motorcade, comprising three six-seater black Mercedes crammed with armed men in civilian clothes, pulled up in a semi-circle round the entrance gates. The chief guard inside panicked and gave an order.

'Release the dogs!'

The gates were opened and the pack of unleashed dogs rushed out, jaws agape, snarling as they leapt at the cars. Beside the driver in the lead car sat Erich Stoller. He gave the command at once.

'Shoot those beasts…'

A window was lowered, a machine-pistol appeared and a fusillade rattled. The vicious animals stopped, some in mid-leap as the hail of bullets swept over them. Within seconds every dog lay inert in the roadway. Stoller stepped out followed by two men.

'Cut the communications in the gatehouse,' he ordered.

The two men ran forward and inside the building as one of the guards held the phone to his ear calling the schloss. One man grabbed him. The second ripped the instrument from the wall. Shaken, the guard still protested.

'That's illegal…'

'You're under arrest. Charge – obstructing the authorities in the performance of their duty…'

Outside another guard was shouting at Stoller. 'You will pay for this – killing the dogs…'

'I noticed one of them was foaming at the mouth,' Stoller told him. 'I suspect rabies. Tests will be carried out.' He returned to his car and spoke to the driver. 'Burn rubber to reach the schloss

The motorcade swept up the curving drive, spinning round corners. One minute after leaving the entrance Stoller saw ahead the walls of the schloss.

'Keep up the speed – they may try to lower the portcullis…'

He was right – as they approached the drawbridge the hydraulically operated portcullis began to move down. All three cars swept through the archway and the gate closed behind them. At the top of a flight of steps stood Reinhard

Dietrich, hands on his hips. Stoller, followed by his men, jumped out and ran up the flight.

`You cannot enter,' Dietrich told him. 'And when I am elected you will be booted out of Bavaria…'

`This warrant…' Stoller waved the document under Dietrich's nose `… signed by the Minister-President, allows me to do what I like – tear down the place stone by stone should it be necessary. Are you going to invite us in or attempt obstruction?'

Dietrich turned away and walked back into the hall followed by Stoller. Inside the industrialist began moving towards a room on the left. Stoller noticed a door to the right which was half-open. He made for it and entered a large library. An attractive dark-haired woman holding a glass sat on a sofa and looked at him over the rim as she drank.

'Your name?' Stoller demanded.

'This is outrageous!' Dietrich had hurried after Stoller and was standing behind a huge desk. 'I shall complain to the Minister-President…'

'There is the phone.' Stoller turned to the woman again and his manner became polite. 'We have full powers of search. Could you please give me your name…'

'Don't answer,' Dietrich told her, reaching for a cigar.

'Klara Beck,' the woman replied and smiled. 'I am Mr Dietrich's secretary and personal assistant. Is there any other way in which I can help you?'

'You can let -me know the present whereabouts of an Englishman who called here within the past hour. His name is Philip Johnson…'

Klara Beck. One of the names Stoller had checked out when Martel had reported the conversation he had eavesdropped on in the phone booth at Lindau Hauptbahnhof. The Stuttgart number had been traced to, a penthouse apartment owned by Dietrich GmbH. There was also an interesting file on Beck which went back to her early days in Berlin.

'I have been working in my office upstairs and just came down to the library before you arrived,' Beck replied. 'I have never heard of anyone by that name…'

`You live here at the schloss?'

'What bloody impertinence…!' Dietrich exploded from behind his desk.

Stoller ignored the industrialist, concentrating his whole attention on examining the room and questioning Beck. His men were at this moment searching the rest of the schloss. Dietrich knew this, yet he had left Erwin Vinz to keep an eye on them. He seemed most reluctant to leave the library, which convinced Stoller he was in the right room.

'I have an apartment in Stuttgart,' Beck replied as she took out a pack of cigarettes and inserted one between her lips. Stoller leant close to her with his lighter and ignited the cigarette. As he did so she watched him with her large eyes and there was a hint of invitation. A dangerous woman.

`It is a company apartment,' she went on. 'One of the advantages of working for the owner.' Her eyes again met Stoller's directly. 'And I'm very good at all aspects of my job.'

`I'm sure you are.'

Stoller bowed courteously, then resumed his slow stroll round the room. The ash-tray on the desk had recently been hastily cleaned. There were smear-marks of ash round its interior. He looked up as one of his men entered the room followed by a colleague.

`Anything so far, Peter?' Stoller enquired.

The man shook his head and Stoller told both of them to wait with him in the library. lie noticed Dietrich was beginning to enjoy his cigar, to relax in his chair.

`Who has told you this fantastic story about this mythical person being anywhere near my home?'

`The aerial camera – plus the co-pilot's field-glasses. The film taken will, when developed, provide the evidence. We used special film which shows the exact date and time pictures are taken – one of the products of your company, I believe?'

`Camera? Pilot? Have you gone mad?'

`A helicopter tracked Johnson up to the schloss – with a cine-camera recording the incident as I have just explained. What cigarettes do you smoke, Mr Dietrich? The brand, I mean.'

`I only smoke cigars – Havanas.' Dietrich was mystified by the turn events were taking and shifted restlessly in his chair.

`And Miss Beck smokes Blend- as I noticed when she took out her pack…'

Stoller was walking along the line of bookcases. He stopped and stooped to pick up a cigarette stub half-hidden in the shag carpet at the foot of a bookcase. He showed everyone the stub which he had spotted a few minutes earlier.

`Interesting. Dietrich on his own admission – smokes cigars. Miss Beck smokes Blend. This stub is Silk Cut – a British cigarette. It was lying at the base of this bookcase. I find it hard to surmise how it comes to be there – unless it was dropped when someone walked through a solid wall. Or is the wall so solid…' He began taking out volumes from the shelves and dropping them on the floor. To speed up the process he swept whole sections of the calf-bound volumes on to the carpet as he nodded to his two men. They produced

Walther automatics and held them ready for use. Enraged, Dietrich strode round his desk.

'Those volumes are priceless…'

'Then show me where the catch is which releases the concealed door.'

'You are mad…!'

Dietrich stopped speaking as another half-dozen books went on the floor and Stoller gazed at a red button set in a plastic frame which had just been exposed. He pressed the button and a section of bookcase slid back revealing the spiral staircase beyond.

'Peter,' he ordered, 'go and see what is down there. Should you meet any resistance use your gun.' He glanced round the room. I doubt if I have to remind anyone terrorist kidnapping is punishable by long terms of imprisonment…'

'I was upstairs helping Klara,' Dietrich began.

'Was he, Miss Beck?' Stoller enquired. 'Be careful how you reply since criminal proceedings may be involved.'

'I'm confused…' Beck started choking on her cigarette but was saved from saying more by the appearance of Martel brushing dirt from his sleeve. There was dried blood on his knuckles where his hands had hit the cellar flagstones. Peter came into the room behind him and spoke to Stoller.

'He was imprisoned in a cellar like a pig-pen but they left the key on the Outside of the door – it saved shooting off the lock.'

'Well, Dietrich?' Stoller asked.

'He is an imposter… I was sure he was an assassin sent to kill me… After he made an appointment I phoned The Times in London… They told me Johnson is in Paris… I have many enemies…'

The Delta leader was talking like a machine-gun, gesturing to indicate his alarm, the words tumbling out as he struggled forcefully to make his story sound plausible enough to make Stoller doubt the wisdom of preferring charges. It was Martel who guided Stoller to a decision.

'I suggest we get to hell out of this den of nauseating clowns. The atmosphere here smells even fouler than it did in that filthy cellar…'

The three BND cars reached the exit, turned past the heap of dog corpses lying in the road and headed back towards Munich.

'In a minute,' Stoller said to Martel, 'we come to where I left Claire Hofer parked in your Audi – where you left her. She recognised me and blasted hell out of her horn to stop us. Then she blasted more hell out of me to hurry to the schloss. That girl likes you,' Stoller commented with a sideways glance.

'I'll bear it in mind – and thanks for keeping tabs on me with the chopper – and for battering your way into the fortress…'

'Why did you visit Dietrich?' the German asked.

'To set the enemy at each other's throats. To convince him he is being betrayed, which I believe is the truth. It may throw a last-minute spanner in the works of Operation Crocodile. And God knows we're close to the last minute…'

Claire made her remark as Martel drove them in the Audi back to Munich. Stoller's motorcade had long since vanished as he hurried to reach the airport to catch his flight to Bonn.

`I assume we cancel out Erich Stoller now as a possible assassin?'

'Why?'

Tor God's sake because he rescued you from the clutches of that swine, Dietrich…'

'And what will be the prime objective of the security chief who is the secret assassin?' Martel enquired.

'I don't follow you,' she said with a note of irritation.

'To act in a way that will convince Tweed and I that he is not the man we're looking for.'

'You can't mean Erich Stoller is still on the list.'

'Yes. He is no more cleared than the others. Let's hope those records we're collecting from Munich Airport do tell us who we're looking for.'