The Day After Tomorrow

96

“PRIVATE DINNER . Black tie. One hundred guests. Invitation only.” Remmer was sitting in his shirt sleeves at a small table, a coffee cup in one hand, a cigarette in the other. In the last hour a half-dozen calls had gone back and forth between Remmer and operatives at the Intelligence Division at Bundeskriminalamt—BKA—Headquarters in Bad Godesberg as they tried to work a profile of the affair at Charlottenburg Palace.

Osborn sat in the room with them, his sleeves rolled up, I watching McVey pace up and down in his stockinged feet. He’d decided the best thing would be to use McVey as McVey had used him. Quietly, unassumingly. Try to find some way to take advantage of-his situation without giving the police any sense of what he was thinking. The Hotel Palace, he’d learned, was part of the giant Europa-Center complex of shops and casinos smack in the heart of Berlin. The Tiergarten, directly across from them, was like Central Park in New York, huge and sprawling, with roads cutting through it and pathways everywhere. From what he’d been able to conclude from a variety of conversations between the policemen themselves and a battery of phone conversations with others, besides the plainclothes BKA detectives stationed in the hallway outside their room, others were downstairs working two-man shifts watching the lobby, two more were posted on the roof and backup radio-car units were on standby alert. A security check had been done on the guests occupying the six rooms in the wing across with sight lines into theirs. Four were occupied by Japanese tourists from Osaka, the other two by businessmen attending a computer trade show. One was from Munich, the other from Disney World in Orlando. All were who they said they were. What it meant was they were about as safe as they could be even if the “group” had discovered where they were and tried to do something about it. The problem was, it also meant Osborn’s chances of doing anything other than what McVey wanted were all but nil.

“A Swiss corporation called the Berghaus Group is giving it.” Remmer was reading from notes he’d scratched on a yellow legal pad. To his left, Noble was talking animatedly on the telephone, a pad like Remmer’s at his elbow.

“The occasion is a welcoming celebration for an—” Remmer looked at his notes again. “Elton Karl Lybarger. An industrialist from Zurich who had a severe stroke a year ago in San Francisco and has now fully recovered.”

“Who the hell is Elton Lybarger?” McVey asked.

Remmer shrugged. “Never heard of him. Or this Berghaus Group either. Intelligence Division is working on it, also on providing us with the guest list.”

Noble hung up and turned around. “Cadoux sent a coded message to my office saying he fled the hospital be cause he was afraid the police on guard had let Lebrun’s killer in. That they were part of the ‘group’ and would get him next. He said he would be in contact when he could.”

“When did he send it and from where?” McVey asked.

“It came in little more than an hour ago. It was faxed from Gatwick Airport.”

Held up by fog, Von Holden’s jet touched down at Tempelhof Airport at 6:35, three hours later than planned. At 7:30, he got out of a taxi on Spandauerdamm and crossed the street to Charlottenburg Palace, now dark and closed for the evening. He was tempted to go around and in through a side door to personally check out the final security preparations. But Viktor Shevchenko had done it twice today already and reported to him en route. And Viktor Shevchenko he would, trust with his life.

Instead, he stood there looking in through the iron gates, visualizing what would be taking place in less than twenty-four hours. He could see it and hear it. And the thought that they were on the eve of it thrilled him almost to the point of tears. Finally, he let it go and began to walk.

As of five o’clock that afternoon, Berlin sector had established that McVey, Osborn and the others had arrived in the city and were headquartered at the Hotel Palace where they were under the protection of the federal police. It was exactly as Scholl had predicted, and he was no doubt right as well when he’d said they had come to Berlin to see him. Lybarger was not on their agenda, nor was the ceremony at Charlottenburg.

Find them, watch them, Scholl had said. At some point they will try and get in touch, to arrange a time and place where we can meet. That will be our opportunity to isolate them. And then you and Viktor will do as is appropriate.

Yes, Von Holden thought, as he walked on—we shall do as is appropriate. As quickly and resourcefully as possible.

Still, Von Holden was uncomfortable. He knew Scholl was underestimating them, McVey in particular. They were smart and experienced and they had also been very lucky. It was not a good combination, and it meant what-ever plan he came up with would have to be exceptionally resourceful, one in which experience and luck would play , as little a hand as possible. His real preference was to take the initiative and get it done quickly, before they had the chance to implement their own plans. But getting to four men, at least three of whom would be armed, guarded by police in a hotel that was part of a complex as huge as the Europa-Center, was all but impossible. It would require significant overt action. It would be too bloody, too loud and nothing would be guaranteed. Besides, if something went wrong and anyone were caught, it chanced compromising the entire Organization at the worst possible time.

So, unless they made an unthinkable mistake and some how left themselves open, he would stay with Scholl’s orders and wait for them to make the first move. From his own experience he knew there was little question that whatever? countermeasure he devised would be successful as long as he was there to command the operation personally. He also knew his energy was better spent on the logistics of a working plan than worrying about his adversaries. But they were a troubling presence and he was uncomfortable almost to the point of requesting Scholl postpone the celebration at Charlottenburg until they had been taken care of. But that was not possible. Scholl had said so from the beginning.

Turning a corner, he walked a half block, then went up the steps to a quiet apartment building at number 37 Sophie-Charlottenstrasse and pressed the bell.

“Ja?” a voice challenged through the intercom.

“Von Holden,” he said. There was a sharp buzz as the door lock released and he climbed the flight of stairs to the large second-floor apartment that had been taken over as security headquarters for the Lybarger party. A uniformed I guard opened the door and he walked down a hallway past a bank of desks where several secretaries were still working.

“Guten Abend.” Good evening, he said quietly and opened the door to a small but serviceable office. The problem was, his thought train continued, the longer they stayed in the hotel without contacting Scholl, the less time he had to formulate a plan of action and the more time they would have to work out a blueprint of their own. But that was something he had already begun to turn in his favor. Time went both ways, and the longer they were there, the longer he had to set the forces in motion that would tell him how much they knew and what they were plotting.