The Day After Tomorrow

107

EVEN THOUGH the call Cadoux had placed to Avril Rocard at the Hotel Kempinski had never rung through, the front desk, on orders from the BKA, had kept the caller on hold long enough for the federal police to trace the call.

Because of it, Osborn was once again in the company of Inspector Johannes Schneider. Only this time there was a second BKA inspector along. Littbarski, a beefy, balding, single father of two. The three were crammed into a tiny wooden booth in a crowded Kneipe, a tavern a half block away, drinking coffee and waiting as McVey, Noble and Remmer climbed the stairs to the apartment on Sophie-Charlottenstrasse.

A middle-aged woman with dyed red hair and wearing a small telephone headset, looking as if she’d come to the door from a switchboard, opened the door and Remmer, flashing a BKA I.D., introduced himself in German. Within the last hour someone had placed a call to Hotel Kempinski Berlin and they wanted to know who it was.

“I couldn’t tell you,” she said in German.

“Let’s find someone who can.”

The woman was hesitant. Everyone had gone to lunch, she said. Remmer told her they’d wait. And if she had a problem with that, they’d get a search warrant and come back. Suddenly the woman raised her head, as if she were listening to something distant. Then she looked back and smiled.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that we are very busy. This is the welcoming headquarters for a private party tonight at Schloss Charlottenburg. Many prominent people are coming and we are frying to coordinate everything. Several are staying at the Hotel Kempinski. It was probably I who called earlier. To make certain our guests had arrived and that everything was all right.”

“Which guest were you checking on?”

“I—I told you. There are several.”

“Name them.”

“I have to check my book.”

“Check it.”

She nodded and asked them to wait. Remmer said it would be better if they came in. Again the woman raised her head and looked off. “All right,” she said finally, and led them down a narrow hallway to a small desk in an alcove. Sitting down next to a multiline phone, she moved a small vase holding a wilting yellow rose and opened a three-ring binder. Turning a page marked Kempinski, she brusquely shoved it under Remmer’s nose for him to read for himself. Six of the guest names were on the Kempinski list, including Avril Rocard.

Letting Remmer handle the woman, McVey and Noble stepped back and looked around. To their left was another hallway. Halfway down and at the end were doors. Both were closed. Across was the apartment’s living room, where two women and a man sat at what looked like rented desks. One typed on a computer, the other two were working telephones. McVey stuck his hands in his pockets and tried to look bored.

“Somebody’s talking to her through that headset,” he said quietly, as if he were talking about the weather or the stock market. Noble glanced back at her in time to see her nod past Remmer toward the man in the living room working the telephones. Remmer followed her gaze, then walked over and showed him his I.D. They talked for several minutes and then Remmer came back to McVey and Noble.

“According to them, he was the one who called Avril Rocard’s room. Neither of them know where either Salettl or Lybarger are staying. The woman thinks they’ll go directly to Charlottenburg from the airport.”

“What time are they due to land?” Noble asked.

“She doesn’t know. Their job seems to be to take care of the guests and that’s all.”

“Who else is here, in the other rooms?”

“She says there are just the four of them.”

“Can we go back there?” McVey nodded toward the hallway.

“Not without cause.”

McVey looked down at his shoes. “What about a search warrant?”

Remmer smiled cautiously. “On what grounds?”

McVey looked up. “Let’s get out of here.”

Von Holden watched on closed-circuit television as the detectives descended the stairs and went out. He’d returned from his meeting with Scholl barely ten minutes earlier to find Cadoux seated in his office, still trying to get through to Avril Rocard at the Hotel Kempinski: Seeing him, Cadoux had slammed the phone down, outraged. At first her line had been busy! Now there was no answer at all! Angered, Von Holden had told him forget it, he was not in Berlin on vacation. It was then the police had arrived. Instantly Von Holden knew how and why, and that he’d had to act quickly, delaying them at the front door while he replaced one of the female secretaries in the front room With the male security guard.

Now, as he watched the door close behind the policemen and saw McVey turn back to study the building’s exterior, he turned angrily to Cadoux, his sharp features illuminated by the bank of black-and-white security monitors.

“You were a fool to call her room from a telephone here.” His voice had the warmth of a steel rod.

“I am sorry, Herr Von Holden.” Cadoux was apologetic but refused to relinquish his soul to a man fifteen years his junior. The rest of the world, Von Holden included, could go to hell when it came to Avril Rocard.

Von Holden looked up at him. “Forget it. By this time tomorrow, it will have made little difference.” A moment before he had been ready to tell him Avril Rocard was dead. To throw it in his face coldly, in simple conversation, and enjoy the pleasure of his anguish. There was something else he could tell him too. Avril Rocard had not only been beautiful and an excellent marksman, she’d also been an internal spy inside the Paris sector and as such, not only Von Holden’s confidante but his lover as well. It was why she had been invited to Berlin. As added security for Lybarger inside Charlottenburg once the celebration had begun; and later, for Von Holden’s own pleasure. All of that could be told to Cadoux to amplify his pain, but none of it would be, at least not now. Cadoux had been brought to Berlin for another reason entirely, one that would require his full and undivided attention, and because of that, Von Holden would say nothing.

Osborn was trying not to think of Vera, where she was and what she might be doing, the idea that she, of anyone, might be involved with the group was impossible, but why else was she here playing someone called Avril Rocard? His entire being felt raw and unnerved, and he heard himself talking to Schneider and Littbarski, attempting to explain the elements of American football over the din of the tavern, crowded, it seemed, with every tourist in Berlin.

At first, the prattle through Schneider’s hand radio had seemed to be simply a routine police broadcast in German. The volume was up and heads in nearby booths turned at the staccato intrusion. Immediately Schneider reached over to turn the volume down. As he did, Vera’s name came through, and Osborn’s heart jumped in his throat.

“What the hell is it?” he said, grabbing Schneider’s wrist. At the move Littbarski stiffened

“Sich schonen.” Take it easy, he said to Osborn.

Osborn released his grip and Littbarski relaxed.

“What about her?” Schneider could see the tenseness in Osborn’s neck muscles.

“Two federal policewomen apprehended Ms. Monneray as she was coming out of the Church of Mary Queen of Martyrs,” Schneider said in his heavily accented English.

Church? Why would Vera be in church? Osborn’s mind raced. He never remembered her mentioning church or religious beliefs or anything like it. “Where are they taking her?”

Schneider shook his head. “Don’t know.”

“That’s a lie. You do know.”

Again Littbarski tensed.

Schneider picked up the radio and started to get up. “My orders are that if anything happened, I am to take you back to the hotel.”

Unmindful of Littbarski, Osborn put out a hand to stop him. “Schneider, I don’t know what’s going on. I want to believe this is a mistake but I can’t know anything until I see her. Talk to her. I don’t want McVey getting her alone first. Dammit, Schneider. I’m asking you, please—help me.”

Schneider looked at him. “I can see it in your eyes. You are crazy about her. That’s the right saying in American— crazy about her?”

“Yes, that’s the right saying. And I am crazy about her. . . . Take me to wherever they’re taking her—” If Osborn wasn’t begging he was close to it.

“You ran out on me before.”

“Not this time, Schneider. Not this time.”