The Day After Tomorrow

108

VON HOLDEN watched the city in a blur, alternatively slowing, accelerating, then stopping the BMW completely in heavy midday traffic, only to move on again a few moments later. He was driving on automatic pilot, his mind torn by outrage and absurdity. Three of the four men he had sworn to kill, one of them McVey himself, had walked into his offices and bullied his help as if he were some kind of street front merchant. Worse, he had been helpless, unable to do anything but let them in and then watch from behind closed doors for fear that failure to do so would bring a full-scale invasion by the federal police.

The madness of it was that it had been set off by Cadoux’s emotional appetite for a woman who hadn’t the slightest interest in him beyond what information he could unknowingly pass on about the loyalty of the operatives inside Interpol. It was then, in his anger at Cadoux’s stupidity, the final pieces of his strategy came together.

72 Hauptstrasse, 12:15 P.M.

Joanna saw the BMW turn in from the street, stop briefly at the guardhouse, then pass through the gate and swing around the circular drive to stop in front of the residence. From where she stood in the upstairs bedroom window it was difficult to see directly below, but she was sure she caught a glimpse of Von Holden as he got out and started for the house.

Going quickly to the mirror, she ran a brush through her hair and touched up the expensive, wet-look lipstick Uta Baur had given her. For reasons she couldn’t explain or begin to understand, and despite all that had happened to her, she felt more sexually aroused than she ever had in her life. As if some insatiable hunger or thirst had suddenly and uncontrollably swept over her so powerfully that it could only be satisfied by the act itself.

Opening the door, she stepped into the hallway and saw Von Holden in the downstairs foyer conferring with Eric and Edward. A moment later he stepped off and disappeared from view. Her instinct was to fly down the stairs after him, but she couldn’t with Lybarger’s nephews still there.

Trying to shake the feeling free, she crossed the hall and knocked gently on a closed door. Immediately it was opened by a white-haired, pale, pig-faced man in a tuxedo. His skin had so little pigmentation she thought he might be albino.

“I—I’m Mr. Lybarger’s . . .” The man’s appearance and almost superior way he looked at her made her nervous.

“I know who you are,” he said in a throaty voice.

“I would like to see Mr. Lybarger,” she said, and was shown in without hesitation.

Elton Lybarger was sitting in a chair by the window reading from a dog-eared sheaf of papers typed with very large print. It was the speech he would give tonight, and in the last few days he’d done almost nothing but go over it.

“I wanted to make sure you were comfortable and that everything was all right, Mr. Lybarger,” she said. It was then she noticed another man, also in a tuxedo, standing back near a window that looked out onto a large backyard. Why Mr. Lybarger needed two bodyguards in his room, in house as elegant and genteel as this, and with a guard-house and a gate out front, she had no idea.

“Thank you, Joanna. Everything is fine,” he said without looking up.

“Then, I will see you a little later.” She smiled caringly.

Lybarger nodded absently and continued reading. Smiling pleasantly at the pig-faced bodyguard, Joanna turned and left.

* * *

Von Holden was alone in a dark paneled study when she came in and closed the door quietly behind her. He was sitting in a chair with his back to her, talking in German on the telephone. The room was dark compared to the bright sunshine in the yard outside. The grass was a vibrant green that caught and displayed like a quilt the; brilliant yellow and red leaves that flitted down from a massive copper beech in the far corner of the yard. To the left of the tree she could see a large five-car garage and beyond it an iron gate that appeared to lead to a service drive in the rear of the estate.

Suddenly Von Holden hung up and swiveled around in his chair. “You shouldn’t come in when I’m on the telephone, Joanna.”

“I wanted to see you.”

“Now you see me.”

“Yes,” she said, smiling. She thought he looked more tired than she’d ever seen him. “Did you have lunch?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Breakfast?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re tired. You even need to shave. Come up to my room. Shower, rest a little.”

“I can’t, Joanna.”

“Why?”

“Because, I have things to do.” Suddenly he stood. “Don’t mother me, I don’t like it.”

“I don’t want to mother you—I want to—make love to you.” She smiled and wet her lips. “Come upstairs, now. Please, Pascal. We may never be able to be alone ever again.”

“You sound like a schoolgirl.”

“I’m not . . . and you know it. . . .” She moved closer, so that she was standing directly in front of him. Her hand slid down over his crotch. “Let’s do it right here. Right now.” Everything about her, the purr of her voice, the movement of her body as she drew herself closer to him, was totally sexual. “I’m wet,” she whispered.

Abruptly Von Holden reached down, took her hand away. “No,” he said. “Now, leave. I will see you tonight.”

“—Pascal. I—love you. . . .”

Von Holden stared at her.

“You should know that by now—”

Suddenly the pupils in his eyes receded to tiny dots and the eyes themselves seemed to press back into his skull. Joanna’s breath caught and she pulled back. Never, ever, had she seen anyone filled with anger or as dangerous as von Holden was now.

“Get out,” he hissed.

With a cry, she turned, bumped into a chair, then pushed around it and ran from the room, the door left open behind her. He could hear her heels on the stone foyer and the sound as she ran up the stairs. He was about to cross to the door to close it when Salettl came in.

“You are angry,” Salettl said.

Von Holden turned his back and stared out the window. He had called Scholl from the car with the final plan. Scholl had listened and agreed. Then, as quickly, he’d taken Von Holden out of it. It was too dangerous, he’d said. Von Holden was too well known as Scholl’s director of European security, and Scholl could not afford to chance the possibility that something would go wrong, with Von Holden killed or captured and the connection made back to him. The police were too close. No, Von Holden would plan it, but Viktor Shevchenko would execute it. That evening Von Holden would be seen publicly escorting Mr. Lybarger to Charlottenburg. And, afterward, he would quietly leave “to do the other,” as Scholl had put it. Those had been the orders and he’d hung up.

“You know, Herr Letter der Sicherheit,” Salettl said softly. “On this day, of all days, your personal safety is beyond value.”

“Yes, I know.” Von Holden turned to face him. Obviously Salettl knew what had taken place between Scholl and Von Holden because it was the “other” he was referring to. Immediately following the celebration at Charlottenburg, there was to be a second ceremony for very privileged few of the guests. Secret and unannounced, it was to take place in the mausoleum, the temple-like building on the palace grounds that housed the tombs of the Prussian kings. Von Holden was to deliver the highly sensitive material to be presented there, and the access codes necessary to retrieve it had been programmed for him, and him alone, and could not be changed.

That he had been selected was in recognition of the high regard in which he was held and the power he had been given. Angry as he’d been, Scholl had been right, as had Salettl. For more than one reason, today of all days, his personal safety was beyond value. He had to realize he was no longer the Spetsnaz soldier that was still in his blood. He was no longer a Bernhard Oven or Viktor Shevchenko. He was Leiter der Sicherheit. Chief of security was no longer a job description but a mandate for the ‘future. As the man who would one day oversee the succession of power for the entire Organization, it made him, for all intents, “keeper of the flame.” And if he hadn’t fully understood it before, he should now, today, more than ever.