The Day After Tomorrow

113

THEY WERE riding in two cars. Noble with Remmer in the Mercedes. Osborn at the wheel of a black Ford, with McVey in the passenger seat beside him. Unmarked BKA backup cars, one with veteran inspectors Kellermann and Seidenberg, and one with Littbarski and a boyish-looking detective named Holt, were already outside the hotel. Kellermann/Seidenberg in the back alley, Littbarski/Holt across the street in front. Kellermann and Seidenberg had checked out the small grocery near the Schonholz subway entrance where Cadoux had made his call. The proprietor vaguely remembered a man of Cadoux’s description using the telephone and seemed to think he’d been there only a short time and had been alone.

In front of them Remmer pulled to the curb and shut out the lights. “Keep going to the corner. When you find a spot pull in,” McVey said to Osborn.

The Hotel Borggreve was a small residential hotel on a particularly dark section of street northeast of the Tiergarten. Four stories tall, maybe sixty feet wide, it linked two taller apartment buildings. From the front, it looked old and poorly kept. Room 412, Cadoux had told them. Top floor in the back.

Osborn turned the corner at the end of the block and parked behind a white Alfa Romeo. Unbuttoning his suit coat, McVey slid out the .38 and flipped open the chamber to make sure it was loaded. “I don’t like being lied to,” he said. McVey had said nothing of Osborn’s confession since he’d identified Von Holden during the screening of the Hauptstrasse house video. He was saying it now because he wanted to remind Osborn who was in control of the situation.

“It wasn’t your father who was murdered,” Osborn said, looking at him. There was no apology, no backing away. He was still angry at the way McVey had used him to try to get Vera to make a mistake and say something he could catch her on. And he was still angry as hell at the way she’d been treated by the police. The whole thing with Vera—the emotional rush of seeing her, of holding her—had played against his doubt of who or what she s might really be, had slammed him once more with the emotional roller coaster his life had been. Seeing her like that had simplified things for him because it focused his priorities. He had to have an answer from Scholl before he could even begin to consider what Vera meant or who she was. That’s why there was no apology to McVey, nor would there be. At this point they were equals or nothing.

“It’s going to be a long night, Doctor, with a lot on the line. Don’t start getting big for your britches.” Holstering the revolver, McVey picked a two-way radio off the seat and clicked it on.

“Remmer?”

“I’m here, McVey.” Remmer’s voice came back sharply through the tiny speaker.

“Everybody on line?”

“Ja”

“Tell them we don’t know what this is, so everybody take it easy.”

They heard Remmer relay the message in German, then McVey clicked open the glove compartment. Reaching in, he took out the Cz automatic Osborn had carried with him in the park and handed it to him. “Keep the lights out and the doors locked.” Fixing him with a stare, McVey pushed the door open and stepped out. Cold air wafted in, then the door slammed and he was gone. Looking in the rearview mirror, Osborn could see him reach the corner and open his suit coat. Then he turned the corner and the street was empty.

The rear of the Hotel Borggreve faced a narrow alley lined with trees. On the far side, a row of apartment buildings ran the entire block. Whatever happened in the alley and the back of the Hotel Borggreve belonged to Inspectors Kellermann and Seidenberg. Kellermann was standing in the shadows beside a dumpster, binoculars trained on the window of the room second from the left on the top floor. From what he could tell, a lamp was on in the room, but that was all he could tell. Then he heard Littbarski’s voice through the earphone of his two-way radio.

“Kellermann, we’re going inside. Anything?”

“Nein.” He spoke softly into the tiny microphone on his lapel. Across the alley he could see Seidenberg’s bulky form silhouetted against an oak tree. He was holding a shotgun and watching the hotel’s back door.

“Nothing here, either,” Seidenberg said.

Salettl stood in a large bedroom on the second floor of the house on Hauptstrasse watching as Edward and Eric playfully helped each other knot the bow ties at the throats of their formal shirts. If they weren’t twin brothers, he thought, they might well be youthful homosexual lovers.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Well,” Eric said, turning quickly and very nearly coming to attention.

“And I, the same,” Edward echoed.

Salettl stood a moment longer, then left.

Downstairs, he crossed an ornate, oak-paneled hallway land entered an equally ornate den where Scholl, resplendent in white tie, stood in front of a crackling fire, a snifter of cognac in his hand. Uta Baur, in one of her all-black creations, sat in a chair beside him, smoking a Turkish cigarette held in a cigarette holder.

“Von Holden is with Mr. Lybarger,” Salettl said.

“I know,” Scholl said.

“It was unfortunate that the policeman involved the cardinal—”

“Nothing should concern you but Eric and Edward and Mr. Lybarger.” Scholl smiled coldly. “This night is ours, good doctor. All of ours.” Suddenly he looked off. “Not just the living, but those now dead who had the vision and courage and the dedication to begin it. Tonight is for them. For them, we will experience and savor and touch the future.” Scholl’s eyes came back to Salettl. “And nothing, good Doctor,” he said quietly, “will take that from us.”