The Day After Tomorrow

116

LESS THAN ten minutes later the taxi turned onto Borggrevestrasse and immediately stopped. The street was blocked off by a police barricade with fire trucks, ambulances and police cars. In the distance, Von Holden could see flames reaching into the night sky. It was exactly what, he should have seen if everything had gone as planned. But with no communication with the operatives, there was no way to know for certain what had happened.

Suddenly Von Holden’s heart began to palpitate violently and he broke into a cold sweat. The palpitations increased. It felt as if someone were tying a knot inside his chest. Terrified, struggling to breathe, he put his hands out beside him for fear he would black out and fall over. Somewhere he thought he heard the taxi driver ask him where he wanted to go now, because the police were kicking everyone out of the area. Reaching up, he clawed at his collar, his fingers fumbling with his tie. Finally he tore it free and lay back, gasping for air.

“What’s the matter?” the driver turned around in his seat to look at him over his shoulder.

Just then an emergency vehicle pulled up beside them, its flashing lights skip-jacking like knives through his ocular nerves. Crying out, he threw up a hand and turned away trying to find darkness.

Then they came.

The monstrous candy-colored ribbons of green and red undulating up and down in perfect rhythm. Huge, demonic pistons shoving through the very center of his being. Von Holden’s eyes rolled back and his tongue caught in his throat as if to strangle him. Never had the dream come while he was awake. And never in so horrible a way.

Certain he would die if he didn’t get out of the cab, he lunged for the door. Flinging it open, he dragged himself across the seat and stepped out into the night air.

“Hey! Where are you going?” the driver yelled over the seat. “What the hell do you think this is, free service?” The smiling, gum-chewing kid was suddenly an angry capitalist. It was then Von Holden realized the driver was a-woman. With her hair tucked up under a cap and loose-fitting jacket, he hadn’t noticed at first.

Breathing deeply, Von Holden stared back. “Do you know Behrenstrasse?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Take me to number 45.”

Lights of oncoming traffic illuminated the men in the car. Schneider was driving with Remmer beside him. McVey and Osborn were in the back. McVey’s lower right cheek and most of his lower lip had been burned raw and had been covered with salve to protect them. The hair on Remmer’s head had been singed back to the scalp and his left hand had been broken in a number of places when part of the ceiling had come crashing down a split second after the explosion. Osborn had taken over for the paramedic at the scene and bandaged it tightly when Remmer insisted that as long as he could walk, the night was not yet over. To a man they remembered Noble as he was being put into the ambulance. Burned over two-thirds of his body, fluid drip-drip ping into his system from an IV held over his head, he should have been at the edge of death and out cold. Instead, he’d opened his eyes and looked up at them and in a hoarse voice, through an oxygen mask, managed—“Plastic explosive. Stupid bastards, aren’t we—” Then his voice grew strong and rose in anger. “Get them,” he said, and his eyes glistened. “Get them and break them.”

Remmer held on as Schneider wheeled the Audi through a sharp turn, then looked back at McVey. “We won’t surprise Scholl, you know. Security will let him know the moment we arrive.”

McVey was staring off and didn’t respond. Noble had been right. They were stupid bastards, the way they’d blundered into the trap. But they’d been anxious and they’d had the pressure of time, of getting to Cadoux before the group did. In retrospect, it was a situation where they should have gone in with marines, not policemen— or at least called in a Berlin P.D. swat team. But they hadn’t and of the four of them, it was Noble who had paid for it the worst of all. The slain German cops angered him too. But there was nothing any of them could do about that now. The only consolation, if there was one, was that four of the group’s people had gone down too. Hopefully, identification of the bodies would open new doors.

Remmer pressed. “Not only will security inform Scholl, they won’t want to let us inside. Our warrant is only for Scholl. Their position will be that it’s not for the premises. We can’t serve a warrant if we can’t get to him.”

McVey looked up. “Tell them that if they, attempt to delay us, we will have the fire minister close the building. That doesn’t work, use your imagination. You’re a cop, they’re only security.” Abruptly he turned to Osborn and leaned in close. His facial burns were ugly and painful but his eyes were alive and intent, and he spoke quickly and with determination. “Scholl may deny it or excuse it out of hand, but he’ll know who you are and that this whole thing got started because of your business with Albert Merriman in Paris. He will, assume Merriman told you about him and that you told me. What he won’t know, or at least I think he won’t know, is how much we’ve put together about the rest. Even if his security people alert him, he’ll still be surprised to see us because he’ll think we’re dead. He’s also arrogant enough to be upset that we’re interrupting his party. Which is something I’m counting on. For reasons we’re not entirely sure of, this, is a very big deal for him and he’s going to want to get rid of us fast as he can and get back to his guests. But we’re not going to Jet him. Which is going to make him even madder. And then we’re going to make him madder still.”

Osborn looked at him uncertainly. “I don’t follow.”

“We’re going to tell him everything we know. About your father’s murder. The scalpel he invented and the occupations and murders of the other people killed the same year he was. And at some point we’re going to throw in a few things we don’t know but are going to act like we do. The idea is to put so much pressure on him that he breaks. Squeeze him so hard that he rolls over and cops out. Confesses to murder for hire.” McVey suddenly looked at Remmer. “How many backup units did you request?”

“Six. With six more holding—waiting for our instructions. We have uniforms behind that if there is a reason for mass arrest.”

“McVey,” Osborn said. “You said we were going to tell him what we don’t know. What do you mean?”

“Suppose, for Herr Scholl’s benefit, we tell him we’ve been searching high and low for a profile of his guest of honor, Herr Lybarger, and have come up with nothing. We’re curious and would like to meet him. For a lot of reasons he’ll refuse. And to that we say okay, since you won’t let us meet him we have to assume the reason we’ve come up with nothing is that the poor guy is dead and has been for a long time.”

“Dead?” Remmer said from the front.

“Yeah. Dead.”

“Then who’s playing Lybarger and why?”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t Lybarger. I simply said the reason we don’t know anything about him is that he’s dead. At least most of him is—”

Osborn felt ice creep down his spine. “You think he’s a successful experiment. That it’s Lybarger’s head on someone else’s body. Done by atomic surgery at absolute zero.”

“I don’t know if I think it but it’s not a bad theory, is it? Lying or not, it was Cadoux who made the connection for us when he said he had information connecting Scholl to Lybarger, and Lybarger to the headless corpses. Why else the mystery surrounding Lybarger’s stroke and his isolation with Doctor Salettl at the hospital in Carmel and his long recuperation at the nursing home in New Mexico? Richman, the micropathologist, said if the operation were done and successful, it would be seamless, undetectable, like a limb grown on a tree. Even his physical therapist, the American girl, wouldn’t know. Wouldn’t in her wildest imagination have any idea.”

“McVey, I think you’ve been in Hollywood too long.” Remmer lit a cigarette and held it between tightly bandaged fingers. “Why don’t you try selling that to the movies.”

“I bet that’s what Scholl says, but I think we ought to take a shot at proving it or disproving it anyway.”

“How?”

“Lybarger’s fingerprints.”

Remmer stared at him. “McVey, this is no theory. You actually believe it.”

“I don’t disbelieve it, Manfred. I’m too old. I can believe anything.”

“Even if we get Lybarger’s prints, which won’t be the easiest thing on earth, what good are they? If your Frankenstein theory is right and his own body from the shoulders down is dead and buried God knows where, we would have nothing to compare them to anyway.”

“Manfred, if you were going to have your head joined to another body wouldn’t you pick a much younger body?”

“This is a bizarre side of you I have never seen.” Remmer smiled.

“Pretend it’s not bizarre. Pretend it’s done all the time.”

“Well—If I was—Yes, sure, a younger body. With my experience, think of all the young, beautiful girls I could get.” Remmer grinned.

“Good. Now let me tell you we’ve got the once deep-frozen head of a man in his early twenties sitting in a morgue in London. His name is Timothy Ashford of Clapham South. He was once in a fight with a couple of bobbies, so the London P.D. has his prints in their Records Bureau.”

Remmer’s smile faded. “You actually think this Timothy Ashford’s fingerprints could belong to Lybarger?”

McVey raised a hand and touched the salve covering his burns. Wincing, he took his hand away and looked at the black flecks of his own charred skin in clear salve.

“These people have gone to a lot of trouble to keep anyone from finding out what’s going on, and a lot of people are dead because of it. Yes, I’m guessing, Manfred. But Scholl’s not going to know that, is he?”