The Day After Tomorrow

87

AT 6:45 AM., Erwin Scholl stood at the window in the office of his top-floor suite in the Grand Hotel Berlin watching the morning sun come up over the city. A gray Angora cat was in his arms and he stroked it absently.

Behind him Von Holden was on the phone to Salettl in Anlegeplatz. Through the closed door to the outer office, he could hear his secretaries fielding a battery of international calls, none of which he was taking.

Outside, on the balcony, Viktor Shevchenko smoked a cigarette and looked out over what had been East Berlin, waiting for instructions. Shevchenko was thirty-two, with the tough, wiry build of a street brawler. He, like Bern-hard Oven, had been recruited from the Soviet Army and brought into the Stasi as an enforcer by Von Holden. Then, with reunification, he had moved over and joined the Organization as chief of the Berlin sector.

“Nein!” Von Holden said sharply, and Scholl turned around.

“No. Not necessary!” he said in German and shook his head.

Scholl turned back to the window, still stroking the cat. He’d heard the only words he’d needed at the beginning of Von Holden’s conversation: Elton Lybarger was resting comfortably and would arrive in Berlin tomorrow as scheduled.

In thirty-six hours, one hundred of Germany’s most influential citizens would have come from across the country and gather at Charlottenburg Palace to see him. At a little after nine, the doors to the private dining room would be opened, the room would hush and Lybarger would make his grand entrance. Resplendent in formal dress, no cane at his side, he would walk alone down the beribboned center aisle, wholly aloof from those who watched him. At room’s end, he would climb the half dozen stairs to the podium, and there, to a thunderous ovation, he would turn like a monarch to face them. Finally, he would raise his arms for silence and then would deliver the most important -and magnificent address of his life.

Hearing Von Holden sign off, Scholl came out of his reverie. Dropping the cat on an overstuffed chair, he sat down at his desk.

“Mr. Lybarger found the video by accident and showed it to Joanna,” Von Holden said. “This morning he has little or no memory of it. She, however, is still causing some trouble. Salettl will take care of it.”

“He wanted you to do it, to come there to smooth it over. That was the argument?”

“Yes, but it is not necessary.”

“Pascal, Dr. Salettl is correct. If the girl continues to be disturbed, it will carry over to Lybarger, which is something quite unacceptable. Salettl may assuage her but hardly to the extent you can. It’s the difference between thinking and feeling. Consider how much more difficult it is to change an emotion than a thought. Even if he changes her mind, she can simply change it back again and cause the kind of disruption we cannot have. But if she’s soothed and stroked, she will end up purring and content like the cat who now sleeps peacefully on the chair.”

“That may be so, Mr. Scholl, but right now my place is here in Berlin.” Von Holden looked at Scholl squarely. “You were concerned our system might not be as efficient as we thought. Well, it is and it isn’t. London sector has found the wounded French policeman, Lebrun, at Westminster Hospital in London. He’s protected around the clock by the London police. London sector working with Paris traced a phone call made in London by the American, Osborn, to a farmhouse outside Nancy. Vera Monneray is there, under the guard of the French Secret Service.” Scholl sat motionless, listening, his hands clasped on the desk in front of him.

“Osborn and McVey have been joined, by a Special Branch commander of the Metropolitan Police,” Von Holden continued. “His name is Noble. They came into Havelberg by private aircraft just before dawn and were picked up and driven off by a Bundeskriminalamt inspector named Remmer. They were escorted by two unmarked Bundeskriminalamt police cars. We have to assume they are coming here, to Berlin.”

Von Holden stood up and crossed to a sideboard where he filled a glass with mineral water. “Not the best of news but timely and factual just the same. The problem with it is that they have managed to get this far. That’s where our system is no longer working. Bernhard Oven should have shot them both in Paris. Instead, it was the American policeman who shot him. They should have been killed in the train explosion or by the Paris sector operatives who were with me in Meaux waiting for the list of survivors to make our move. It didn’t happen. Now they are coming here a day and a half before Mr. Lybarger is to be presented.”

Von Holden drained the glass and set it back on the sideboard. “It is a problem I cannot resolve if I am in Zurich.”

Scholl leaned back and studied Von Holden. As he did, the cat slid out of the chair where it had been sleeping, and with a feathery leap, jumped into his lap.

“If you leave now, Pascal, you will be back by evening.”

Von Holden stared at him as if he were crazy. “Mr. Scholl, these men are dangerous. Isn’t that clear?”

“Do you know why they are coming to Berlin, Pascal? I can, tell you why in two words: Albert Merriman. He told them about me.” Scholl effected a smile—the idea seemed to flatter him.

“When I first came to Palm Springs in the summer of 1946,I met a man who was then ninety. As a youth in the 1870s, he had been an Indian fighter. One of the many things he told me was that the Indian fighters always killed the young Indian boys whenever they found them. Because, he said, they knew that if they didn’t, one day the boys would grow up to be men.”

“Mr. Scholl, what’s the point of this?”

“The point, Pascal, is that I should have remembered that story when I first hired Albert Merriman.” Scholl’s long fingers stroked through the cat’s silky coat like delicate razors. “A short while ago I went back through my personal files. One of the people Herr Merriman took care of for me was a man who designed medical instruments. His name was Osborn. I have to believe it is his son who is with the policemen coming to Berlin.”

Pushing back from his desk, with the cat cradled in one arm, Scholl got up and walked to the door that opened onto the balcony. As he reached for the handle, Viktor Shevchenko opened it from the outside.

“Leave us,” Scholl said, stepping past him and into the sunshine.

To the outside world Erwin Scholl was an elegant, self-made man, alive with charisma. His own persona all but impenetrable, he had an almost mystical ability to see what motivated others. To presidents and statesmen, it was a gift beyond value because it provided critical insight into the most guarded ambitions of their adversaries. But to those he chose not to charm, he was cold and arrogant, choosing to manipulate through intimidation and fear. And the handful of people close to him—Von Holden among them—he made servile to the darkest side of his nature.

Scholl looked over his shoulder to see that Von Holden had come out onto the balcony and was standing behind him, and for a moment let his gaze fall to the traffic on Friedrichstrasse, eight stories below. He wondered why he. valued young men and at the same time distrusted them. Perhaps it was the reason he could never show himself to them sexually. In fewer years than he cared to count, he would be eighty, and his sexual desire was as strong as ever. Yet, the fact was, he had never in his life had unclothed sex with anyone, man or woman. His partner would disrobe, of course, but for him to do so would be unthinkable because it would involve a degree of trust and vulnerability it was utterly impossible for him to express. It was a truth that he had never been totally naked with another human being since he was a child. And the one child who had seen him that way he later bludgeoned to death with a hammer and hid the body in a cave, and that had been at the age of six.

“They are not coming to Berlin because of Mr. Lybarger, or because they have some idea of what is going on at Charlottenburg. They are coming here because of me. If the police had any real evidence of my involvement with Merriman, they would have already acted. What they have at best is something told, most probably to Osborn, by a man who is now dead. As a result, theirs will be the probing action of policemen. Strategic, calculated but predictable, easily countered by attorneys, and, in one way or another, disposed of.

“Osborn, I agree, is different. He is coming because of his father. He has no allegiance to the police, and I would assume he has merely used them, hoping somehow to get to me. Once he is here, he will take chances. And that, I’m afraid, is a passion and recklessness that could unsettle things.” Scholl turned to face him, and in the bright sunlight Von Holden could see the deep lines of age time had etched into his face.

“They are coming here heavily protected. Find them, watch them. At some point they will try to get in touch with me, to arrange a time and place where we can talk. That will be our opportunity to isolate them. And then you and Viktor will do as is appropriate. In the meantime, you will go to Zurich.”

Von Holden looked off, then back. “Mr. Scholl. You are underestimating these men.”

Until now Scholl had been quiet and matter-of-fact. Gently stroking the cat in his arms, he’d simply laid out a plan of action. But suddenly his face reddened. “You think I like it that these men, as you call them, are still alive or that Lybarger’s woman therapist is causing trouble? All of it, Pascal, all of it is your responsibility!” The cat rose in alarm in Scholl’s arms but he held it firm, stroking it almost mechanically.

“And after these failures you talk back to me. Did you find out why these men were coming to Berlin? Did you understand what they were after and come to me with a plan about what to do about it?”

Scholl held Von Holden in his stare. The prized son, who could do no wrong, suddenly had. It was more than disappointment, it was a betrayal of faith, and Von Holden knew it. Scholl had had to fight Dortmund, Salettl and Uta Baur to make him director of security for the entire Organization and bring him into the inner circle. It had taken months, and he’d finally done it by convincing them that they were the last of the hierarchy still living. They were old, he told them, and had made no provisions for the future. The greatest empires in history had been lost almost overnight because there had been no clear plan for succession of power. In due course, others would take their place at the head of the Organization. The Peipers, perhaps, or Hans Dabritz, Henryk Steiner, even Gertrude Biermann. But that time was not yet here, and until it was the Organization needed to be protected from within. Scholl had known Von Holden as a boy. He had the background and the training and had long proven his ability and loyalty. They needed to trust him, to make him the man in charge of security, if for nothing else than the future safety of everything they had worked to attain.

“I am sorry, sir, to have disappointed you,” Von Holden said in a whisper.

“Pascal.” Scholl softened. “You know that you are the closest thing to a son I have,” he said quietly. The cat relaxed in his arms, and Scholl began to stroke it again. “But today I cannot afford to talk to you like a son. You are Leiter der Sicherheit, and wholly answerable for the security of the entire operation.”

Suddenly Scholl’s hand closed on the scruff of the cat’s neck. With an abrupt wrench, he lifted the animal free of the arm that had been cradling it and held it out over the side of the balcony and the traffic eighty feet below. The animal shrieked, struggling wildly. Screaming, it rolled up in. a ball, clawing at Scholl’s arm and hand, desperately trying to find a way to cling to it.

“You must never question my orders, Pascal.”

Suddenly the cat’s right forepaw shot out, raking a jagged, bloody path across the back of Scholl’s hand.

“Never. Is that clear?” Scholl ignored the cat. Having torn flesh, it struck again and again until Scholl’s arm and wrist ran with blood. But Scholl’s eyes remained on Von Holden’s. There was no pain because nothing else existed. Not the cat. Not the traffic below. Only Von Holden. He was demanding total allegiance. Not just for now but for as long as he lived.

“Yes, sir. It is clear,” Von Holden breathed.

Scholl stared for a moment longer. “Thank you, Pascal,” he said quietly. With that he opened his hand and the cat, screaming in terror, dropped out of sight like a stone. Then Scholl brought his hand in from over the balcony railing, palm held upward, the blood running in a half circle around his Wrist before disappearing into the stark white of his shirt sleeve.

“Pascal,” he said, “when the time comes, be most respectful of the young doctor. Kill him first.”

Von Holden’s eyes went to the hand in front of him and then back to Scholl. “Yes, sir...,” he breathed again.

Then, as if following a dark and ancient ritual, Scholl lowered his hand and Von Holden sunk to his knees and took the hand in his. Bringing it to his mouth, he began to lick the blood from it. First the fingers. Then slowly working his way to the palm and then farther up, to the wrist itself. He did it deliberately and with his eyes open, knowing that Scholl stood above him, watching transfixed. And he continued that way, his tongue and lips suckling the wounds over and over until finally and at length Scholl gave a profound shudder and drew back.

Von Holden stood slowly and for a moment stared, then quickly turned and went back inside, leaving Scholl in private to recover from the fulfillment of his desire.