Snow Wolf (5 page)

The subsequent forensic and pathology
examinations determined that the girl was aged between ten and twelve. She had
not been raped, but there was severe bruising on her legs, arms, chest and
genital area, which suggested she had been badly beaten and tortured some hours
before being shot. The same with the man's corpse lying next to hers. Both
bodies were placed in cold storage in the Lucerne police morgue.

The only corpse that could be identified
was that of Manfred Kass. In his wallet was a driver's license and a shotgun
permit, and he wore a wristwatch with an inscription, "To Manni, with
love, Hilda."

The police learned that the bakery worker
had gone hunting after his Friday-night shift and deduced that he had perhaps
stumbled onto the slaughter of the man and the child and paid with his life.

But of the murderer or his identity,
there was no trace at all.

A month later there was still no evidence
that linked the two unknown corpses to missing persons. Both had no personal
identification and had been wearing the sort of clothes that could be bought in
any large clothing store in Europe. The child's dress and underwear had been
purchased in a Paris department store, the man's suit had been bought from a
very popular chain of men's outfitters in Germany.

Concerning the bodies, the only clue was
a faded, minute tattoo on the man's right arm. It was of a small white dove,
two centimeters above his wrist.

Washington, D.C. December 12th It was a
little after eight in the evening when the DC-6 carrying President-Elect Dwight
D. Eisenhower from Tokyo landed at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C.

Although he was not to take over the
reins of power until January, Eisenhower had flown to Seoul a month after his
election to assess personally the war situation in the Far East, wanting to see
for himself the state of play on the muddy battlefields of Korea.

His meeting with President Harry Truman
the next day was unofficial, and after the brief welcome Truman suggested they
take a walk in the White House gardens.

The air was crisp and clear, the ground
covered in a moist carpet of brown and gold leaves, as Truman led Eisenhower
down the path through the lawns where the Secret Service men stood at strategic
intervals.

The two men seemed a strange pair: the
small bespectacled President with the bow tie and walking cane who, like a
certain predecessor, believed that the way to earn respect was to speak softly
and carry a big stick, and the tall, erect military man and former five-star
general who had been a professional soldier all his life.

They had reached one of the oak benches
and Truman gestured for them to sit.

He lit up a Havana cigar, puffed out
smoke and sighed. "You know what I'm going to do the day after I leave
office?

I'm going to fly down to Florida and bake
under a hot sun. Maybe do me some fishing. Seems like I haven't had time for
that in years." The President hesitated before he looked at Eisenhower's
face and said more seriously, "Tell me, Ike, what's your opinion of
Stalin?"

The President called his successor by his
nickname, the one that had stuck with him since West Point as a young cadet.
Eisenhower ran a hand over his almost bald head. His shoulders tensed as he sat
forward and looked out at the White House gardens.

"You mean as a military
adversary?"

Truman shook his head. "I meant as a
man."

Eisenhower shrugged and laughed bitterly.
"I don't think you need to ask me that question. I'm on the record in that
regard. The man's a despot and a dictator. Shrewd and cunning as they come. You
could say he's the cause of all our present problems, or certainly most of
them. I wouldn't trust the goddamned son-of-a-bitch an inch."

Truman leaned forward, his voice firm.
"Hell, Ike, that's my point. He is the whole damned problem. Forget about
the Chinese. We don't have to worry about them for at least another ten years
down the road. But the way the Russians are moving so fast with their nuclear
research they're going to be way ahead of us militarily. And you know as well
as I do they've got some pretty good technical minds working for them. The top
ex-Nazi scientists. We've exploded a hydrogen device, but they're working on
the actual bomb, for God's sakes. And they'll make it, Ike, you mark my words,
and sooner than we think. And when that happens, old Joe Stalin knows he can do
pretty much as he likes."

"What do our intelligence people
say?"

"About the Russian hydrogen program?
Six months. Maybe sooner. But six months at the outside. The word is, Stalin's
authorized unlimited funds. And our latest intelligence reports say they've
built a test site at a place near Omsk, in Siberia."

Eisenhower frowned. The sun was still
warm on his face as he glanced toward the Washington Monument half a mile away
He looked back as Truman put down his cigar and spoke again' "Ike, this is
the first real opportunity we've had to talk in' private, and no doubt the CIA
will be briefing you in the coming weeks, but there's something else you ought
to know. Something pretty disturbing."

Eisenhower studied the small
dapper-dressed man. "You mean about the Russian bomb program?"

Truman shook his head and his face
appeared suddenly grim.

"No. What I'm talking about is a
report. A highly classified report. It was sent to me by the special Soviet
Department we have over near the Potomac. I want you to read it. The source is
a highly placed contact we have who has links to the Kremlin. And to tell you
the truth, the report has me scared. More scared than I've been in a long time.
And you're looking at a man who's come through two world wars, like yourself.
But this ..." Truman broke off and shook his head. ""Hell, this
worries me even more than the Germans or the Japs did."

There was a look of surprise on
Eisenhower's face. "You mean the source of the report is a Russian?"

"An immigrant Russian, to be
precise."

"Who?"

"Ike, even I can't tell you that.
That's a matter for the CIA. But you'll know the first day you're sitting in
the Oval Office."

"Then why let me read this report
now?"

Truman took a deep breath, then stood up
slowly.

"Because, Ike, I'd like you to be
prepared before you come into office. What you're going to be privy to doesn't
make for pleasant reading. There are some pretty disturbing things in there,
like I said, that scare the pants off me. And whether you like it or not, the
contents of the report are going to determine not only your presidency but a
hell of a lot else besides. Certainly the future course of this country, maybe
even the future course of the whole damned world."

Eisenhower frowned. "It's that
serious?"

"Ike, believe me, it's that
serious."

The two men sat in the silence of the
Oval Office, Eisenhower reading from the manila-colored file, the cover and
each were marked in red lettering: "For President's Eyes Only." aged
Truman sat opposite, not in the President's chair, but on the small floral
couch by the window that faced the Washington Monument. His hands were resting
on his cane as he looked over at Eisenhower Is rubbery face. It was grave and
the generous wide lips were pursed.

Finally, Eisenhower placed the report
gently on the coffee table. He stood and crossed restlessly to the window, hands
behind his back. In another five weeks he would inhabit the President's chair,
but suddenly the prospect seemed to hold less appeal for him. He put a hand to
his forehead and massaged his temples. Truman's voice brought him back.

"Well, what do you think?"

Eisenhower turned. Truman stared at him,
his glasses glinting in the strong light from the window.

For a long time Eisenhower said nothing,
his face drawn. Then he shook his head. "Jesus, I don't know what to
think."

He paused. "You trust the source of the
report?"

Truman nodded firmly. "I damned well
do. No question. And I've had some independent experts brought in on this.
Non-CIA and all top-class people in their field. I wanted them to verify
everything you just read. They all agreed with the facts."

Eisenhower took a deep breath. "Then
with respect, sir, the day I become President I'm walking into a goddamned mine
field."

"I guess you are, Ike," Truman
replied, matter-of-factly. "And hell, I'm not being flippant. Just scared.
Damned scared.

Truman stood and went over to the window.
There were dark rings under his eyes and his soft face looked troubled in the
harsh light, as if the strain of eight years in office was finally taking its
toll. Suddenly Harry Truman looked very old and very tired.

"To tell the truth, maybe even more
scared than I was when I made the decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. This has even wider implications. Greater dangers."

When he saw Eisenhower stare back at him,
Truman nodded gravely over toward the desk.

"I really mean it, Ike. I'm glad
it's going to be a former five-star general sitting in that President's chair
and not me. Florida's going to be hot enough. Who the hell needs
Washington?"

While the two men talked in the Oval
Office, four thousand miles away in Paris, France another man lay in the
darkened bedroom of a hotel on the boulevard Saint Germain.

Rain drummed against the windows, a
downpour falling beyond the drawn curtains.

The telephone rang beside the bed. He
picked it up. When he spoke he recognized the voice that answered.

' "It's Konstantine. It happens
Monday in Berlin. Everything's arranged, I want no mistakes."

"There won't be." There was a
pause, and then the man heard the bitterness in the caller's voice.

"Send him to hell, Alex. Send the
butcher to hell."

Soviet-Finnish border. October 23rd Just
after midnight the snow had stopped and she lay in the cottony silence of the
woods, listening to her heart beating in her ears like the flutter of wild
wings. She was cold.

Her clothes were soaked through and her
hair was damp and she was aware of the icy sweat on her face. She was more
tired than she had ever been in her life, and suddenly she wanted it to be
over.

For the past hour now she had watched the
sentry hut beside the narrow metal bridge that ran across the frozen river.
Every now and then she rubbed her limbs, trying to get warm, but it was no use,
she was chilled to her bones, and she longed for warmth and for a final end to
the exhaustion. Her uniform coat was covered in frost and snow, and as she lay
in the narrow gully behind the bank of fir trees she tried not to think of the
past, only the future that lay beyond the narrow metal bridge.

She could see the two guards on the
Russian side, standing by the small wooden sentry hut, their breaths fogging in
the freezing air as they paced up and down. One of them had a rifle slung over
his shoulder; the other a machine-pistol draped across his chest. The two men
were talking but she couldn't hear their words, only a soft babble of voices.

There was a wooden guardhouse off to the
left, forty meters away, a bank of fir trees beside it, the branches sugared
with snow. A light was on inside, a plume of wood smoke curling into the
freezing air. She knew that was where the other guards would be resting off
duty, but for over half an hour now no one had moved in or out of the warmth of
the guardhouse, only shadows flitting in and out of the yellow light behind the
frosted glass. OD the metal bridge, electric light blazed from arc lamps in the
trees overhead and the red-and-white barrier poles were down at both ends.

She thought she could see the lights of
Finland through the trees but she wasn't sure, for there was a flood of light
on the Finnish side of the border, and more guards, but this time in gray
overcoats and uniforms.

She saw a sudden movement and her eyes
went back to the Russian side. The guard with the rifle stepped into the tiny
sentry hut while the other moved into the trees, unbuttoning his fly to relieve
himself.

Her body shivered now, knowing what she
had to do, knowing that if she didn't move soon she would freeze to death, the
icy cold gnawing deep into her bones. She rolled over in the snow and her
gloved hand searched in the leather holster and she found the cold butt of the Na
gant revolver.

She rolled back slowly and looked over at
the guard urinating. She knew this was her moment and she took a deep breath.
She stood and her legs trembled with fear. As she came out from behind the
cover of the trees, she slipped the weapon into the pocket of her overcoat.

She was down at the sentry hut before she
knew it and she saw the guard with the machine-pistol button his trousers and
turn abruptly. He stared at her as if she were a ghost.

What he saw was a young woman coming
toward him. Her captain's overcoat with green epaulettes and her officer's
winter hat looked a size too big, her clothes covered in a rime of frost and
snow. Her dark eyes were sunk in their sockets and her lips were cracked from
the cold.