Games of State

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Bob Herbert huffed a little as he wheeled himself away from his car.

Herbert didn't have a motor on his wheelchair, and he never would. If he was ninety and frail, unable to wheel very far, he simply wouldn't go very far. He felt that being unable to walk didn't mean being incapacitated. While he was too old to try to do wheelies, like some of the kids in the rehabilitation center all those years ago, he didn't like the idea of puttering around when he could wheel himself. Liz Gordon once told him that he was using that to flagellate himself because he had lived while his wife had died. But Herbert didn't buy that. He liked moving under his own steam and he loved the endorphin rush he got from turning the millstone weight of the wheels. He had never been one to work out before the 1983 explosion, and this sure beat hell out of the biphetamines they used to take in Lebanon to stay awake in times of crisis. Which in Beirut was all the time.

As he guided himself up the slightly inclined street, Herbert decided against going to the registration desk and trying to sign up. He didn't know a helluva lot about German law, but he guessed he didn't have the right to harass these people. He did, however, have the right to go to a bar and order something to drink, which was what he intended to do.

That, plus find out what he could about the whereabouts of Karin Doring. He didn't expect to wrest information from anyone, but loose lips really did sink ships. Outsiders were always amazed at how much intelligence one picked up simply by eavesdropping.

Of course, he thought, first you've got to get under the eaves to catch the drops. The crowd ahead might try to stop him. Not because he was in a wheelchair: he wasn't born that way, he'd earned his disability serving his country.

They'd try to stop him because he wasn't a German and he wasn't a Nazi. But however much these hotshots wished it weren't so, Germany was still a free nation. They'd let him into the Beer-Hall or they'd have an international incident.

The intelligence chief wheeled himself up the street behind the Beer-Hall and came at it from the opposite side.

That way, he didn't even have to pass the registration area and see any more stiff armed salutes.

Herbert turned the corner and rolled toward the Beer- Hall, toward those two hundred or so men drinking and singing out front. The men nearest him turned to look at him. Nudges brought other heads around, a sea of youthful devils with contemptuous eyes and hard laughs.

"Fellows, look who is here! It is Franklin Roosevelt and he is searching for Yalta." So much for no one making a comment about my disability, Herbert thought. Then again, there was always one clown in every group. It puzzled him, though, that the man had spoken in English. Then Herbert remembered what was written on his sweatshirt.

Another man raised his beer stein. "Herr Roosevelt, you are just in time! The new war has begun!" "Ja, " said the first man. "Though this one will end differently." Herbert kept wheeling toward them. In order to reach the Beer-Hall, he was going to have to go through these natty Hitler Youths. Less than twenty yards separated him from the nearest men.

Herbert glanced to the left. The police officer was in the middle of the street, some two hundred yards past them. He was looking the other way, working hard to keep the traffic from stopping.

Did he hear what these cretins were saying, Herbert wondered, or was he also working hard to stay the hell out of whatever happened?

The men in front of him had been facing in various directions. When Herbert was just five yards away, they turned and faced him. He was two yards away. One yard.

Some of them were already drunk, and their body language suggested that many were enjoying their pack mentality.

Herbert guessed that only a quarter or so of the faces he saw had the intensity of people with convictions, warped as they were. The rest were the faces of followers. That was something a spy satellite couldn't tell you.

The neo-Nazis didn't move. Herbert rolled to within inches of their loafers and expensive running shoes, then stopped. In standoffs in Lebanon and other trouble spots, Herbert had always taken a low-keyed approach. There was an element of mutual assured destruction when standoffs ended prematurely: storm an airplane and you would get the hijackers but you might also lose some hostages. But no one could hold a hostage or stand in your way forever. If you waited long enough, a compromise could usually be reached.

"Excuse me," Herbert said.

One of the men glanced down at him. "No. This street is closed. It's a private party." Herbert could smell the alcohol on his breath. He wasn't going to be able to reason with him. He looked at another man. "I've seen other people walking through. Will you excuse me?" The first man said, "You are correct. You have seen other people walking through. But you are not walking so you may not pass." Herbert fought the urge to run over this man's foot. All that would have done was bring a sea of steins and fists raining down on him.

"I don't want problems," Herbert said. "I'm just thirsty and I'd like to get a drink." Several men laughed. Herbert felt like Deputy Chester Goode trying to enforce the law with Marshal Dillon out of town.

A man with a beer stein shouldered through the wall of men. He stood in front of them and held the beer straight out, over Herbert's head.

"You're thirsty?" the man said. "Would you like some of my beer?" "Thanks," Herbert said, "but I don't drink alcoholic beverages." "Then you are not a man!" "Bravely spoken," Herbert said. He was listening to his own voice and was surprised at how calm it sounded. This guy was a chicken-shit with an army two or three hundred strong behind him. What Herbert really wanted to do was challenge him to a duel, like his daddy once did to someone who'd insulted him back in Mississippi.

The Germans were still looking down at him. The man with the stein was smiling but he wasn't happy. Herbert could see it in his eyes.

That's because you just realized you don't gain much by pouring it on me, Herbert thought. You've already said I'm not a man. Attacking me is beneath you. On the other hand, this man had a beery brashness about him. He might just bring the heavy bottom of the stein down on his head.

The Gestapo consider Jews to be subhuman. Yet they used to stop Jewish men on the street and pull out their beards with pliers.

After a moment, the man with the stein brought it to his lips. He took a sip and held it in his cheeks for a moment as though contemplating whether or not to spit. Then he swallowed.

The man stepped next to the wheelchair, on the right side. Then he leaned heavily with one hand on the telephone armrest.

"You were told that this is very private party," the youth said. "You are not invited." Herbert had had it. He'd come here to reconnoiter, to gather intelligence, to do his job. But these guys had presented him with the "unexpected" which was very much a part of HUMINT operations. Now he had a choice. He could leave, in which case he wouldn't be able to do his job and he would lose all self-respect. Or he could stay, in which case he would probably get beaten all to hell. But he might— might— convince some of these punks that the forces which had defied them once were alive and well.

He chose to stay.

Herbert looked into the man's eyes. "Y'know, if I had been invited to your party," he said, "I wouldn't attend. I enjoy socializing with leaders, not followers." The German continued to lean on the armrest with one hand, holding his stein in the other. But looking into the German's blue-gray eyes, Herbert could see him deflating inside, his hubris leaking away like air hissing from a balloon.

Herbert knew what was coming. He slipped his right hand under the armrest.

The only weapon the German had left was his beer.

With a look of contempt, he tipped the stein over and slowly poured the contents into Herbert's lap.

Herbert took the insult. It was important to show that he could. When the neo-Nazi was finished and stood to only scattered applause, Herbert yanked his sawed-off broom handle from under the armrest. With a turn of the wrist, he pointed the stick at the neo-Nazi and jabbed him in the groin. The German cried out, doubled over, and staggered back against his colleagues. He was still holding the stein, clutching, it reflexively, as though it were a rabbit's foot.

The crowd yelled and surged forward, threatening to become a mob. Herbert had seen that happen before, outside of American embassies abroad, and it was a frightening thing to behold. It was a microcosm of civilization unraveling, of humans regressing to territorial carnivores. He began to wheel back. He wanted to get to a wall, protect his flank, be able to bat at these Philistines like Samson with the jawbone of an ass.

But as he rolled away, he felt a tug on the back of his wheelchair. He scooted back faster than he was wheeling.

"Halt!" shouted a raspy voice from behind.

Herbert looked back. A skinny police officer, about fifty years old, had stopped directing traffic and had run over. He was standing behind him, holding the grips of his chair, breathing heavily. His brown eyes were strong, though the rest of him seemed a little shaky.

People began shouting things from the crowd. The police officer answered them. From the tone of their voices and the few words Herbert picked up, they were telling the officer what Herbert had done, and to mind his own business. And he was telling them that this was his business. Keeping the sidewalks orderly, as well as the streets.

He was hooted and threatened.

After the brief exchange, the officer said to Herbert in English, "Do you have an automobile?" Herbert said that he did.

"Where is it parked?" Herbert told him.

The police officer continued backing Herbert away.

Herbert put his hands on the wheels to stop them from turning.

"Why do I have to leave?" Herbert asked. "I'm the wronged party!" "Because my job is to maintain peace," the officer said, "and this is the only way I can do it. Our ranks are thin, spread out at rallies in Bonn, Berlin, Hamburg. I'm sorry, mein Herr, I don't have time to attend to the case of one man. I am going to take you to your automobile and so that you can leave this area of the city." "But those bastards attacked me," Herbert said. He realized he was still holding the stick, and replaced it before the police officer thought to take it away. "What if I want to press charges against them, expose the whole damn lot of them?" "Then you will lose," said the officer. He turned Herbert around, away from the crowd. "They say that man was offering to help you into the Beer-Hall and you struck him— " "Yeah, right." "They say that you caused him to spill his beer. At the very least, they wanted you to pay for that." "And you believe all this?" "It doesn't matter what I believe," the police officer said. "When I turned, that man was hurt and you were holding a stick. That is what I saw, and that is what I would have put in my report." "I see," Herbert said. "You saw one middle-aged man in a wheelchair facing two hundred healthy young Nazis and you concluded that I was the bad guy." "As far as the law is concerned, that is correct," said the police officer.

Herbert heard the words and he understood their context. He heard it enough in the U.S. regarding other criminals, other punks, but they still amazed him. Both men knew that these bastards were lying, yet the group would get away with what they did here. And as long as no one in law enforcement or government wanted to put their own security in danger, they would continue to get away with it.

At least Herbert took some comfort in the fact that he would get away with it too. And giving that pig a poke was almost worth the beer bath he took.

As Herbert was wheeled away, car horns sounded in the traffic tie-up caused by the police officer's departure.

They echoed the noise in his own soul, the noise of the anger and determination which filled him. He was leaving, but he resolved to get these goons. Not here and not now, but somewhere else and soon.

One of the men had separated from the crowd. He went into the Beer-Hall, strolled through the kitchen, exited by the back door, and used a trash can to climb the picket fence. He crossed through an alley and emerged on the same street as Herbert and the police officer.

They had already passed, headed toward the side sheet where Herbert had parked his car.

The young man followed them. As one of Karin Doring's personal lieutenants, he had been instructed to watch anyone who might be watching them. That was something those who were unaligned with any specific faction would not think to do.

He stayed well behind them, watching as the police officer helped Herbert into the car, as he placed the wheelchair in the back, as he stood there making sure that Herbert drove off.

The man pulled a pen and telephone from the inside pocket of his blazer. He described the license tag and the make of Herbert's rented car. When the police officer turned and walked briskly back toward his beat, the young man also turned and went back to the Beer-Hall.

A moment later, a van pulled out of a parking area located three blocks from Bob Herbert.