The Day After Tomorrow

82

BECAUSE OF decreasing visibility, Clarkson had altered his flight plan and landed near Ramsgate on the English Channel, nearly a hundred miles southeast of his original destination. His chance maneuver had thrown Von Holden off.

An hour after the Cessna ST95 had flown out of Meaux, an airport custodian had found McVey’s discarded suit coat at the bottom of the trash bin in the airport men’s room. Within minutes the Paris sector had been alerted, and twenty minutes after that Von Holden had arrived to Claim his uncle’s misplaced jacket from lost and found. Smartly, McVey had torn the label out before getting rid of the coat. What he hadn’t realized was the constant chafing over the butt of his .38 had worn the lining just enough to be noticeable, and Von Holden knew from experience that the only thing that chafed a jacket there was the handle of a gun.

Von Holden retreated to his hotel in Meaux while the Paris sector scanned flight plans of aircraft leaving Meaux between sunrise and the time the jacket had been found. By 9:30, he’d established a six-passenger Cessna with the marking ST95 had flown in from Bishop’s Stortford, England that morning, landing at 8:01, and taken off for the same destination twenty-six minutes later, at 8:27. It wasn’t a guarantee, but it was enough to alert the London sector. By three o’clock, operatives had located Cessna ST95 at Ramsgate field, and the London sector home office had traced its ownership to a small British agricultural company with headquarters in the western city of Bath. From there the trail had turned cold. The Cessna had been parked at Ramsgate field with the pilot leaving word he would return for the plane when the weather had cleared: After that he’d left, taking a bus for London in the company of another man. Neither had matched the descriptions of McVey and Osborn. That information was immediately forwarded to the Paris sector for transmission to “Lugo,” who had returned to Berlin. By 6:15 that evening, London sector had copies of the enhanced newspaper photographs of both men and was on full alert to find them.

At 8:35, McVey sat alone in his undershirt on the edge of his bed in a refurbished eighteenth-century hotel in Knightsbridge. His shoes were off, and a glass of Famous Grouse scotch whisky rested on the telephone table, at his sleeve. Special Branch had checked him in as Howard Nichol of San Jose, California. Osborn, under the name Richard Green of Chicago, had been checked into the Forum Hotel not far away in Kensington, and Noble had gone home to his residence in Chelsea.

In his hand was a fax from Bill Woodward, chief of detectives at the LAPD, informing him of the murder of Benny Grossman. Initial and confidential NYPD investigations were centering on the probability the killing had been done by two men posing as Hasidic rabbis.

McVey tried to do what he knew Benny would do. Put his own feelings aside and think logically. Benny had been killed in his home approximately six hours after he’d called Ian Noble with the information McVey had requested. Never mind the other stuff. That Benny had spent his last entire night alive collecting the material because McVey had told him it was urgent. Or that he’d called Noble with it because he’d seen the satellite TV coverage of the Paris-Meaux train disaster and had a psychic jolt that McVey had been on the train, and that Noble would need whatever information he had as soon as he could get it to him.

The hard fact was that he’d called Noble from his home with his detailed list. What that meant was that not only did the group have operatives working in the States with very sophisticated information-retrieval technology accessed into classified police department computer systems, they also knew what information had been gathered, by whom and from where, If they could do that, they could get into telephone company logs and by now would know where Benny had called, and most likely whom, because Benny would have used Noble’s private number.

And if they were set up to operate in France and the United States, they would almost assuredly be set up to operate here in England.

Taking a large swallow of scotch, McVey set the glass down, pulled on a fresh shirt and tie and took his only other suit from the closet. A few minutes later he slid his .38 into the holster at his hip, took another belt of scotch and left. There’d been no need to look in the mirror; he knew what he’d see.

Pushing through the hotel’s polished brass front door, he walked the half block to the Knightsbridge Underground station. In twenty minutes he was in Noble’s tastefully appointed house in Chelsea, waiting as Noble called New Scotland Yard on his direct line, ordering a car for his wife. Fifteen minutes later, they said their goodbyes and she was on her way under guard to her sister’s home in Cambridge.

“Nothing she hasn’t experienced one way or another before,” Noble said after she’d gone. “The I.R.A., you know. Nasty business all the way around.”

McVey nodded. He was worried about Osborn. Metropolitan detectives checking him into his hotel had warned him to stay in his room. McVey had tried calling him before he’d left his hotel to meet Noble but there’d been no answer. Now he tried again and got the same result.

“Nothing still?” Noble said.

McVey shook his head and hung up. The minute he did, Noble’s red phone rang. The direct line from Yard headquarters.

Noble picked up. “Yes. Yes, he’s here.” He looked at McVey. “A Dale Washburn of Palm Springs has been trying to reach you.”

“She on the line?”

Noble asked for a confirm and instead, got a phone number where Washburn could be reached. Taking it down, he hung up and gave the slip of paper to McVey.

Walking into the hallway, McVey picked up Noble’s house phone and dialed Palm Springs. “Try Osborn again, huh?” he said to Noble. It was a little after eleven in the evening, London time. Just after three in the afternoon in Palm Springs.

“This is Dale,” a soft voice said.

“Hello, angel, it’s McVey. What do you have?”

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

“You want me to say it, just like that? There’s a couple of other people here.”

“Then they must be friends of yours. Tell me what you have.”

“Two pair, lover. Aces over eights, the dead man’s hand. There, you happy I gave it away?”

“Poker—”

“You got it, baby, I’m playing poker. Or I was until you called. Let me go into the other room.” McVey heard her say something to someone else. A minute later she picked up the extension, and the other phone was hung up.

Dale Washburn stepped out of Raymond Chandler. She was thirty-five, a genuine platinum blonde, with a terrific body and a brain to match. She’d been an LAPD undercover cop for five years before her cover was blown during a screwed-up midnight drug raid in upscale Brentwood. With a bullet inoperably lodged in her lower back, she took a disability pension to Palm Springs, played cards with a few rich divorcés, male and female, and hung out a quiet shingle as a very private investigator. McVey had called her as soon as he’d checked into his Knightsbridge hotel. He wanted everything she could dig up about Mr. Harald Erwin Scholl in two hours.

“Nothing.”

“Come on—nothing . . .” McVey heard the anger in his own voice. He wasn’t handling Benny Grossman’s murder as well as he thought.

“Nothing, baby. I’m sorry. Erwin Scholl’s who he’s supposed to be. A richer-than-hell publisher, art collector, and chum-chum with the ultras, as in presidents and prime ministers. In capital letters, my love. If there’s more, it’s dug deep in the sandbox where only the really big kids play. And little girls and boys like you and me aren’t going to find it.”

“What about a history—” McVey said.

“Poor immigrant comes here from Germany just before World War Two, works his keester off and the rest is what I already told you.”

“Married?”

“Never, babe. Not as far as I could find out in a coupla hours. And if you’re thinking gay, honey, the queens he plays with are the kind with emeralds and sable and armies. Ladies who have coronations and used to rule empires and probably still sit on jeweled heads.”

“Angel, you’re not giving me much.”

“One fact I can give you, and you can do with it what you want—your man is in Berlin until Sunday. Big commemoration or something at a place called—wait’ll I look at my notes—they’re here somewhere—Yeah, here we go—the place, a palace or something called Charlotten-burg.”

“Charlottenburg Palace?” McVey looked to Noble.

“A museum in Berlin.”

“Go back to your game, angel. I’ll take you to dinner when I get back.”

McVey, for you, anytime.”

McVey clicked off. Noble was staring at him.

“Angel?” Noble grinned.

“Yeah, angel—” McVey said flatly. “What about Osborn?”

Noble’s smile faded and he shook his head. “Nothing.”