The Day After Tomorrow

95

MCVEY WAITED with Noble and Osborn until Gravenitz signed the Haftbefehl, the arrest warrant for Erwin Scholl, and presented it to Remmer. Then, thanking Gravenitz and shaking hands with Honig, the four left the judicial chambers and took Gravenitz’s private elevator to the garage.

They were walking on eggshells and knew it, Osborn included. For all intents, the court order now resting in McVey’s pocket, as Honig had suggested, was all but useless. Presented to Scholl in your everyday knock and notice—”Good evening, sir, we are the police and have a warrant for your arrest and this is why”—Scholl might be carted off to jail like John Doe, but within the hour would come a battery of attorneys who would do all the talking, and in the end Scholl would walk out, most likely never having said a word.

In the weeks that followed, a volume of depositions would be filed by Scholl and a number of extremely distinguished others vouching for Scholl’s character and swearing his total noninvolvement, denying he’d ever known, had business with or had reason to have business with Osborn’s father or any of the deceased; denying he’d ever heard of, let alone known and had dealings with, a man called Albert Merriman; avowing he’d been else-where and not at his Long Island estate during the dates mentioned; denying he’d ever heard of, let alone had dealings with, a former Stasi agent named Bernhard Oven; avowing he’d been in the United States and nowhere near Paris at the time of Merriman’s murder. And those sworn testimonies, backed by the prominence of those who had given them, would in effect, warrant Scholl’s complete innocence. Adding to that the fact there was no real evidence, the charges would be promptly dismissed.

And then, perhaps a year or more later, with Scholl’s name and person fully distanced and the episode all but forgotten, would come the cold, detached retribution Honig had warned about. And McVey, Noble, Remmer and Osborn would see their careers and then their lives crumble into nothing. Friends, co-workers and people they’d never heard of would come forward with accusations of theft, corruption, sexual depravity, malpractice and worse. Their families would be held up to ridicule and their once-proud names would be splashed across media headlines for as long as it took to ruin them. Compared to the]m, Humpty-Dumpty would be a great granite edifice, chiseled eternally whole alongside the other grand survivors atop the cliffs at Mount Rushmore.

With a squeal of tires Remmer wheeled out of the garage and onto Hardenbergstrasse with a federal police escort car right behind.

Five minutes later, he pulled into a garage on a street across from the twenty-two-story glass-and-steel Europa Center. “Auf Wiedersehen. Danke,” he said into his radio.

“Auf bald.” See you later. The escort car accelerated off in traffic.

I assume you feel we’re safe,” Noble said, as Remmer pulled into a spot away from the entrance.

“Sure we’re safe.” Getting out, Remmer lifted the submachine gun from its door holder and locked it in the trunk. Then, lighting a cigarette, he led them down a ramp, through a steel utility door and along a corridor filled with electrical and plumbing conduit that ran directly under the street above and connected to the Europa Center complex on the far side.

“Do we know where Scholl is?” McVey’s voice echoed in the long chamber.

“The Grand Hotel Berlin. On Friedrichstrasse, across the Tiergarten. From here, a long walk for an aging gentleman like yourself.” Remmer grinned at McVey, then i pushed through a fire door at the end of the corridor Stabbing out his cigarette in an ashtray, he stopped at a service elevator and pressed the button. The door opened almost immediately and the four entered. Remmer punched the sixth-floor button, the doors closed and they started up. It was only then that Osborn realized Remmer had been carrying a gun at his side the entire time.

Looking at the three as they stood there silently in the pale light of the elevator, he felt wholly out of place, as if he were a fifth for bridge or the best man at an ex-wife’s wedding. These were veteran policemen, professionals, whose lives were intertwined in that world like so much muscle and bone. The warrant in McVey’s pocket had come from one of the state’s most prestigious criminal judges and the man they were going up against was very nearly a world figure who would have an army of his own. McVey had told him the reason he was coming with them to Berlin was to give a deposition, and he had. And now there was no need for him. Was he so naive as to believe McVey was actually going to go the next step and honor what he’d said and let him come along when he confronted Scholl? Suddenly a knot tightened in his stomach. McVey didn’t give a damn about Osborn’s personal war. His agenda was his and nobody else’s.

“What is it?” McVey caught him staring at him.

“Just thinking,” Osborn said quietly.

“Don’t overdo it.” McVey didn’t smile.

The elevator slowed and then stopped. The door opened and Remmer stepped out first. Satisfied, he led them down a carpeted hallway. They were in a hotel. The Hotel Palace. Osborn saw a brochure on a table as they passed.

Then Remmer stopped and knocked on the door to room 6132. The door opened and a stocky, tough-looking detective ushered them into a large suite that had two good-sized bedrooms connected by a narrow hallway. The windows in both rooms angled out toward the green of the Tiergarten park, with the window in the first room looking at an angle toward rooms in what appeared to be a newer wing.

Remmer slipped the gun inside his jacket and turned to talk to the detective who had let them in. McVey went into the hallway and looked into the second bedroom. Then came back. Noble wasn’t particularly fond of the proximity of the new wing, which had any number of rooms that could see, albeit on a slant, into theirs, and said so. McVey agreed.

The stocky detective threw up his hands and told them with a heavy accent they’d been lucky to get rooms at all, let alone a suite. Berlin was alive with trade shows and conventions. Even the federal police didn’t have a lot of pull when rooms had been overbooked three months in advance.

“Manfred, in that case, we’re overjoyed,” McVey said. Remmer nodded, then said something in German to the detective and the man left. Remmer locked the door behind him.

“You and I’ll camp out here,” McVey said to Remmer. “Noble and Osborn can have the other room.” Crossing to the window, he fingered the feather-light material of the draw shade and looked down at the traffic on the Kurfürstendamm below. “Phones secured?” His gaze lifted to the dark expanse that was the Tiergarten across the street.

“Two lines.” Remmer lit a cigarette and took off his leather jacket, revealing a muscular upper body and an old-fashioned leather shoulder holster that cradled what Osborn now saw was a very large automatic.

McVey pulled off his own jacket and looked at Noble. “Check on the situation with Lebrun, huh? See if they’ve found who the shooter was. How he got in. What the word is on Cadoux. See if anybody knows where he went, where he is now. We need to determine if he was there by chance or on purpose.” Hanging up his jacket, he looked at Osborn. “Make yourself at home. We’re gonna be here for a while.” Then he went into the bathroom and washed his hands and face. When he came out he was drying his hands on a towel and talking to Remmer.

“This Charlottenburg deal tomorrow night. Let’s find out what it is and who’s going to be there. I trust your people in Bad Godesberg can do that for us.”

Osborn left them, went into the second bedroom and looked around. He was working like hell to control the paranoia growing inside him. Twin beds with olive-and blue bedspreads. Small table between the beds. Two small chests of drawers. A TV. A window looking out. Its own bathroom. He knew McVey’s mind was tracking the whole, a field officer with a slim ace up his sleeve maneuvering a small combat unit against a king’s army and searching every way possible to gain advantage against it. Osborn wasn’t even in his thoughts. He’d been purposely roomed with Noble so McVey wouldn’t find himself in a position where they would be alone and Osborn might ask questions. Because then McVey would be in the awkward situation of having to explain why Osborn would not be going along when they went to meet Scholl. That was smart. String him along. Save it to the last minute. Just go out the door saying, “Sorry, this is police business.” Then leave him in the custody of the federal police waiting out side in the hallway.