The Day After Tomorrow

105

OSBORN STOOD under the shower trying to calm down. It was just after 9:00 A.M., Friday, October 14, eleven hours before the ceremony at Charlottenburg was scheduled to begin.

Karolin Henniger was a way in and they couldn’t use it. Remmer had checked again when they’d returned to the hotel. Karolin Henniger was a German citizen and single mother of an eleven-year-old boy. She had spent the late 1970s and most of the eighties in Austria, then returned to Berlin in the summer of 1989. She voted, paid her taxes and had no criminal record of any kind. Remmer had been right; there was nothing they could do.

Yet she knew. And Osborn knew she knew.

Suddenly the bathroom door banged open.

“Osborn!” McVey barked. “Get out here. Now!”

Thirty seconds later, naked and dripping, a towel around his waist, Osborn stood staring at the television McVey had on in the front room. It was a live news special from Paris showing extremely somber proceedings in the French parliament, one speaker after another getting up to make a brief statement before sitting back down. Over it was urgent narrative in German and then someone was being interviewed on screen in French and McVey heard the name François Christian.

“His resignation,” Osborn said.

“No,” McVey said. “They found his body. They’re saying he committed suicide.”

“Jesus Christ,” Osborn breathed. “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

Remmer was on one phone to Bad Godesberg, Noble on the other to London. Both wanted more details. McVey pushed a button on the remote and they got an English-language simulcast.

“The prime minister’s body was found hanging from a tree in the woods outside Paris by an early-morning jogger,” a female voice said over a long shot of wooded area cordoned off by French police.

“Christian reportedly had been despondent for days. Pressure for a United States of Europe had turned France against the French and he was a minority voice outspokenly against it. Because of his insistence, he had lost the confidence of the ministry. Sources inside the government say he had been forced to resign and that announcement was to have come as early as this morning. However, reports attributed to his wife say that at the last minute he had chosen to rescind his resignation and had called for a meeting today with party leaders.” The narrator paused, then went on, over a matching video. “French flags fly at half mast and the president of France has declared a national day of mourning.”

Osborn knew McVey was talking to him, but he didn’t hear any of it. He could only think of Vera. Wonder if she knew yet and, if she did, how she’d found out. Or if she didn’t know, where and how she would find out. And how she would be afterward. The notion flashed of how remarkable it was for him to be so concerned over the fate of her former lover. But that was how much he loved her. Her anguish was his anguish. Her pain, his. He wanted to be with her, hold her, share it with her. Be there for her. Whatever McVey was saying, he didn’t care.

“Shut up for a minute and listen to me, would you please!” Osborn suddenly lashed out. “Vera Monneray— François Christian took her to wherever she was when I called her from London. It’s somewhere in the French countryside. She may not have heard. I want to call her. And I want you to tell me if it’s safe to do that.”

“She’s not there.” Noble had just put down the phone and was looking at him.

“What do you mean?” Anxiety shot through Osborn. “How would you even—?” He stopped short. It was a foolish question. He was over his head with these people. So was Vera.

“It came in on the wire to Bad Godesberg,” McVey said quietly. “She was in a farmhouse outside Nancy. The three French Secret Service officers guarding her were found shot to death on the premises. A policewoman named Avril Rocard from the First Préfecture of Police in Paris was also there. From what they can tell, she cut her own throat. Why, or what she was doing there, nobody knows. Except that your Ms. Monneray took her car and later left it at the Strasbourg railroad station when she bought a ticket to Berlin. So, unless she got off somewhere along the way, I think we’d better assume she’s here now.”

Osborn’s face was beet red. He was incredulous. He no longer cared what they knew or how they knew it. That they could think what they were thinking was crazy. “She’s not there and you suppose she’s one of them? Just like that! Part of the group? What proof do you have? Go ahead. Tell me. I want to know.”

“Osborn, I know how you feel, I’m only passing on information.” McVey was calm, almost sympathetic.

“Yeah? Well you can go to hell!”

“McVey—” Remmer turned from the phone. “An Avril Rocard checked into the Hotel Kempinski Berlin a little after seven this morning.”

The room was empty when they came in. Remmer was first, the automatic in his hand, then came McVey, Noble and finally Osborn. Outside in the hallway, two BKA detectives guarded the door.

Moving quickly, Remmer went into the adjacent bedroom and then checked the bathroom. Both were empty. Coming back, he notified McVey, then went in and worked his way out from the bathroom. Pulling on surgical gloves, Noble went into the bedroom. McVey did the same and went over the living room. It was richly furnished with a view looking over the Kurfürstendamm below. Vacuum cleaner marks were still in the carpet, indicating the suite had been recently cleaned. A room-service breakfast tray was on a coffee table in front of the sofa. On it were a small glass of orange juice, several slices of untouched toast, a silver coffee thermos and a coffee cup, half filled with cold, black coffee. On the table beside the tray, a newspaper was face up, the headline of François Christian’s suicide stark and brutal in large type.

“She take it black?”

“What?” Osborn stood in a daze. It was inconceivable Vera could be here in Berlin. It was even more inconceivable that she could be involved with the group.

“Vera Monneray,” McVey said. “She take her coffee black?”

Osborn stammered, “I don’t know. Yes. Maybe. I’m not sure.”

There was the sound of a beeper in the other room. A moment later Remmer came in wearing surgical gloves like the others, and picked up the telephone. Dialing, he waited, then said something in German. Taking a small notebook from his pocket, he wrote something in pencil. “Danke,” he said and hung up.

“Cardinal O’Connel called back,” he said to McVey. “Scholl’s expecting your call. This number.” He tore off the sheet and handed it to him. “Maybe we won’t need the warrant after all.”

“Yes, and maybe we will.”

Remmer went back into the other room, and McVey began working the front room again. Paying close attention to the couch and the carpet directly beneath it, where whoever was drinking the coffee and looking at the newspaper would have been sitting.

“This Avril Rocard.” Osborn was working to be civil, logical, to make some sense of what was so overwhelming to him. “You say she’s with the Paris police. Have they positively identified her body? Maybe it was someone else. Maybe Avril Rocard is here, maybe it’s not Vera at all.”

“Gentlemen—” Noble stood in the door to the bedroom. “Would you come in, please.”

Osborn stood back and watched with the others as Noble slid open the door to the bedroom closet. Inside were two sets of day clothes, a black velvet evening dress, and a silver mink stole. Leading them to a low bureau, Noble sat down, pulled open the top drawer and lifted out several pairs of lace underwear with matching bras, five unopened packets of Armani pantyhose, and a see-through silvery silk nightgown. The drawer beneath revealed two purses, one a black formal clutch to go with the evening dress. The other was a brown leather over-the-shoulder bag.

Taking out the black clutch, Noble opened it. Inside were two jewelry cases and a velvet drawstring bag. The first jewelry case held an opera-length diamond necklace, the second matching earrings. In the drawstring bag was a small, silver-plated, .25-caliber automatic. Putting them back the way he found them, Noble hefted the over-the-shoulder purse. Inside, held together by a rubber band, was a packet of unpaid bills addressed to Avril Rocard, 17 rue St.-Gilles, Paris, 75003. A Paris Préfecture of Police I.D. and a small, black nylon sport bag. Opening it, Noble laid out Avril Rocard’s passport, a clear Ziploc bag containing a packet of German Deutschmarks, an unused first-class Air France ticket from Paris to Berlin, and an envelope with a reservation confirmation from the Hotel Kempinski, dated for arrival on Friday, October 14, and checking out on Saturday, the fifteenth. Looking up at the faces surrounding him, Noble reached into the purse once more and came out with an elaborately engraved envelope, already Opened. From it, he took out an engraved invitation to the dinner for Elton Lybarger at Charlottenburg Palace.

Instinctively, McVey reached inside his jacket for the guest list.

“No need. I’ve already checked, an A. Rocard is there, a half-dozen names ahead of Doctor Salettl, one of the guests we had no information on,” Noble said, getting up. “One more thing . . .”

Crossing to a bedside table he picked up an object wrapped in a dark silk scarf. “It was tucked under the mattress.” Unwrapping the scarf, he pulled out a long, dog-eared leather wallet. As he did, he saw Osborn react. “You know what it is, Doctor Osborn—”

“Yes—” Osborn said. “I know what it is. . . .”

He’d seen it before. In Geneva. In London. And in Paris. It was Vera Monneray’s passport case.