The Day After Tomorrow

72

AVOIDING THE elevator, Scholl walked down the four flights of gallery stairs with Von Holden at his side. At the street, Von Holden opened the door and they stepped into crisp night air.

A uniformed driver opened the door to a dark Mercedes. Scholl got in first and then Von Holden.

“Go down Savignyplatz,” Scholl said as they moved off.

“Drive slowly,” he said as the Mercedes turned onto a tree-lined square and drove at a crawl along a block of crowded restaurants and bars. Scholl leaned forward staring out, watching the people on the street, how they walked and talked to each other, studying their faces, their gestures. The intensity with which he was doing it made it seem as if it were all new, as if he were seeing it for the first time.

“Turn onto Kantstrasse.” The driver swung onto a block of garish nightclubs and loud cafés.

“Pull over, pleasè,” Scholl said finally. Even though he was being polite, his manner was short and clipped, as if everything was a military order.

A half block down, the driver found a spot on the corner, pulled in and stopped. Sitting back, Scholl folded his hands under his chin and watched the squeeze of young Berliners trafficking relentlessly through the neon colors of their clamorous Pop Art world. From behind the tinted windows, he seemed a voyeur intent upon the pleasures of the world he was watching, but keeping his own distance from it.

Von Holden wondered what he was doing. He’d known something was troubling him the moment he’d picked him up at Tegel Airport and taken him to the gallery. He thought he knew what it was, but Scholl had said nothing and Von Holden thought that whatever it might have been had passed.

But there was no reading Scholl. He was an enigma hidden behind a mask of uncompromising arrogance. It was a temperament he seemed helpless or unwilling to do anything about because it had made him what he was. It was not unusual for him to work his staff eighteen hours a day for weeks and. then either criticize them for not working harder or reward them with an expensive holiday halfway around the world. More than once he’d walked out of critical labor negotiations at the eleventh hour and disappeared, going alone to a museum or even a movie, and not returning for hours. And when he did return, he expected the problem to have been resolved in his favor. Usually it was, because both sides knew that he would fire his entire negotiating staff if it were not. If that happened, a new staff would be brought in and negotiations would be started from scratch, a. process that would cost both Scholl and the opposition a fortune in new legal fees. The difference was that Scholl could afford it.

In both cases it was more than simply getting done what he wanted done, it was a control mechanism, the deliberate flaunting of a colossal ego. And Scholl not only knew it, he reveled in it.

Von Holden had been Leiter der Sicherheit—director of security—for Scholl’s general European operations—two printing plants in Spain, four television stations, three in Germany, one in France, and GDG, Goltz Development Group, of Düsseldorf, of which Konrad Peiper was president—for eight years; personally hiring the security staffs and supervising their training. Von Holden’s responsibility, however, did not end there. Scholl had other, darker and more far-ranging investments, and their safeguard fell under Von Holden’s title as well.

The situation in Zurich, for example. The pleasuring of Joanna was a case of manipulation requiring skill and delicacy. Salettl believed Elton Lybarger wholly capable of complete recovery: emotionally, psychologically and physically. But early on, he had voiced concern that with no women in his life, when the time came to test Lybarger’s reproductive capacity, a woman he was unfamiliar with could make him uncomfortable, to the point where he might possibly refuse to perform, or at least, be stilted in his performance.

A female who had been his physical therapist for an extended period and who had accompanied him all the way to Switzerland, to look after him there would be someone he trusted and was comfortable with. He would know her touch, even her smell. And though he might never have looked upon her sexually, he would, at the time he was brought to have intercourse with her, be under the influence of a strong sexual stimulant. Fully aroused, yet not wholly aware of the circumstances, he would instinctively sense the familiar and in doing so relax and proceed.

Hence the choosing of Joanna. Far from home, with no immediate family, and not terribly attractive, she would be physically and emotionally vulnerable to a surrogate’s seduction. A seduction whose sole purpose was to ready her for copulation with Elton Lybarger. The need for the surrogate had been Salettl’s calculated judgment and he’d voiced it to Scholl, who had turned to his Leiter der Sicherheit. Von Holden’s personal participation would not only guarantee Lybarger’s security and privacy, it would further demonstrate Von Holden’s allegiance to the Organization.

Across from the street, a digital neon clock over the entrance to a disco read 22:55. Five minutes to eleven. They had been there for thirty minutes and still Scholl sat in silence, absorbed in the young crowds filling the street.

“The masses,” he said quietly. “The masses.”

Von Holden wasn’t sure if Scholl was talking to him or not. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t hear what you said.”

Scholl turned his head and his eyes found Von Holden’s. “Herr Oven is dead. What happened to him?”

Von Holden had been right in the first place. Bernhard Oven’s failure in Paris had been bothering Scholl all along, but it was only now that he’d chosen to discuss it.

“I would have to say he made an error in judgment,” Von Holden said.

Abruptly Scholl leaned forward and told the driver to move on, then turned to Von Holden.

“We had no problems for a very long time, until Albert Merriman surfaced. That he and the factors surrounding him were eliminated as quickly and efficiently as they were only proved that our system continues to work as designed. Now Oven is killed. Always a risk in his profession, but troubling in its implication that the system might not be as efficient as we presumed.”

“Herr Oven was working alone, operating on information provided him. The situation now is under control of the Paris sector,” Von Holden said.

“Oven was trained by you, not the Paris sector!” Scholl snapped angrily He was doing what he always did, making it personal. Bernhard Oven worked for Von Holden, therefore his failure was Von Holden’s.

“You are aware I have given Uta Baur the go-ahead.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you realize the mechanisms for Friday night are, by now, already in place. Stopping them would be difficult and embarrassing.” Scholl’s stare penetrated Von Holden the same way it had Salettl. “I’m sure you understand.”

“I understand. . . .”

Von Holden sat back. It would be a long night. He’d just been ordered to Paris.