The Berlin Conspiracy (22 page)

The barrel was just a little too long and hard to control from that angle. It kept slipping off the chain and pointing at various parts of my body, leading me to seriously reconsider the wisdom of my plan. Maybe I could get by with the cuffs, at least for a while, until I came up with an alternative. …

Fuck it. There was no alternative. I closed my eyes, said a quick prayer, and pulled the trigger. The pistol kicked hard and my hands flew apart as the slug blasted through the cuffs like they were ninety-nine cents a pair from Woolworth’s. There was a large, scorched hole where the bullet had blown through the seat. I congratulated myself on my ingenuity and stepped out of the car. A brand-new silver Porsche 911 caught my eye. Not the easiest thing on wheels to hot-wire, but worth the effort. Like the ad said, “Just for the Fun of It.”

I’d taken a couple of steps when I noticed the pungent aroma of gasoline in the air and a trickling sound coming from underneath the taxi. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the liquid was pouring through the .44-caliber bullet hole that I’d just put in the fuel tank. Just when I was thinking how lucky I was that it hadn’t exploded on impact, I noticed that the rapidly expanding pool of flammable fuel was no more than two inches from the still-smoking cigarette butt I’d tossed aside a few minutes earlier.

I got maybe halfway to the exit, running at full tilt, when the blast hit. It picked me up, carried me through the air, and slammed my rag-doll body against a concrete wall. I bounced hard onto the ground, struggled to my feet, and, holding my bruised rib cage, stumbled through the smoke to the doorway. I managed to pull the heavy steel door open and start up the stairwell just as the building’s foundation was rocked by a series of explosions, one on top of the other, as car after car on the basement floor took its turn to go
BOOM!

I picked up an old Alfa Spider
a couple of blocks from the garage. Very nice, jet-black with burgundy leather inside. I could’ve had the less conspicuous white Ford sedan parked across the street, but I went for style over substance.

With no idea about my location, I stopped at the first newsstand I came across and bought a map of Berlin. The proprietor, a hulk of a guy who must’ve been built into the kiosk, gave me a funny look and I realized I’d better get rid of my blood-soaked shirt if I wanted to avoid attention. I paid for the map, along with a copy of
Berliner Morgenpost,
which had Kennedy’s picture plastered all over the front page, and headed back to the car.

My left side was pretty sore and I wondered if I’d cracked a rib in the explosion. I gave it a poke, decided it didn’t hurt enough to be broken, then tried rotating my arm a couple of times to loosen things up. I thought better of it when a
sharp pain shot through my diaphragm and up my arm to my shoulder. Better to leave well enough alone.

Opening the driver’s-side door and gingerly removing my jacket, I took the shirt off, rolled it into a ball, and tossed it behind the seat. The T-shirt was relatively free of blood, so I slipped the jacket on over it. It was a bit Miami Beach, but it would do. I sat behind the wheel and looked the paper over. Kennedy’s Berlin itinerary was printed in a box in the lower right-hand corner. I spent a moment on it, trying to commit it to memory, then turned to the headline, which translated as
KENNEDY CONQUERS COLOGNE!
The lead article went something like this:

Not exactly in-depth political analysis, but interesting nonetheless. The West German government might not have succumbed to JFK’s charms, but its people seemed to have fallen under his spell. And the enthusiastic reception was just what the president needed to help him with his European problem.

The European problem was a “mutual defense pact” the German government had signed with France. On the surface, it was an historic achievement, two bitter enemies coming
together after a century of catastrophic warfare. In reality—at least in Washington’s view—it was dangerous stuff and Kennedy’s primary mission in Europe was to scuttle it. Which accounted for his chilly reception in Bonn.

De Gaulle was the troublemaker, as usual. The French president didn’t hide his contempt for America’s influence on the Continent, and he missed no opportunity to undermine it. With this treaty, de Gaulle was tacitly encouraging the Germans to develop their own nuclear deterrent. He didn’t actually want them to have the bomb; he just wanted to put Kennedy in a position where he’d have to veto it, believing that the German people would resent him for interfering. But it didn’t look like resentment on the streets—and you could bet that Monsieur de Gaulle wouldn’t be getting the Elvis treatment if he turned up in Cologne.

Kennedy had seen in Cuba just how easily the unthinkable could happen, and he knew that even the suggestion of missiles in West Germany would make that near catastrophe look like a walk in the park. After coming so close, he wanted the world to take a step back from the brink, not dive over it. Just two weeks earlier, he’d announced high-level talks in Moscow, saying it was time to negotiate arms control with the Soviets.

And that brought me back to the Black Hand—the ring of military officers and spies who, a half century earlier, had conspired to gun down the archduke as he rode in his open car through the streets of Sarajevo. He had tried for peace, too, and with his death the men of that secret society got the war they wanted. I shuddered to think about history repeating itself in Berlin. Kennedy would arrive in less than twenty-four hours and there were men waiting for him who believed that negotiation with the enemy was nothing short of treason. But if these men got their war, it wouldn’t be fathers strapping on their rifles, kissing their wives and
children good-bye, and marching off to battle, as my father had done. Not this time. This time the war would come to us. It would come as we slept and it wouldn’t discriminate. We would all pay the price—men, women, and children.

I tossed the paper aside, got a fix on where I was and where I was going, put the car in gear, and pulled away.

I parked a block away from Kovinski’s building. There wasn’t much chance of finding him at home—the boys would have him stashed away somewhere—but I hoped I could pick up some sort of lead in his apartment. I had no idea what I was looking for. A scrap of paper, an address, anything to get me back on track. It occurred to me that he might have a wife or girlfriend hanging around, but having met the guy, it seemed unlikely. It’d be easier if he didn’t, but it wouldn’t stop me if he did.

I rang the bell a few times until I was satisfied that no one was going to answer, then started down the line of buzzers. I was about halfway through them when an old woman’s soft voice came over the intercom.

“Wer ist da?”
she said sweetly.

Figuring he wouldn’t be on speaking terms with his neighbors, I told her, in German, that I was Herr Kovinski from 5C and I’d forgotten my key, could she be so kind as to let me in? She buzzed the door open without another word. Nice lady, I thought as I stepped into the lobby. It was dark and cool inside, the stark interior consisting of nothing more than painted cinder-block walls and a bare concrete floor.

There was a small elevator on one side, but I took the stairs. If the place was being watched, which was certainly possible, I’d have been spotted and would be a sitting duck in the lift. At least I’d have a fighting chance out in the open. I pulled the Beretta, switched the safety off, and stuck
it back in my belt, where I could easily get to it. Carefully opening the door onto the fifth floor, I stepped into a long, empty hallway that smelled of somebody’s Wiener schnitzel, making me feel a bit queasy.

All the apartments had basic cylinder locks, easy as pie, and 5C had no extra security. I listened for a couple of seconds before getting started, just to be sure, then pulled out the two screwdrivers I’d taken from the taxi before it went up in flames. I pressed the smaller of the two, a very thin one used for electrical work, against the door frame, bending the tip to a forty-five-degree angle. I then pushed the larger tool into the lock and turned it clockwise, applying enough pressure to slightly offset the cylinder from its housing. Inserting the bent screwdriver, I got under the pins one by one and lifted until I heard the soft click as each fell into place. It took about ninety seconds—like riding a bicycle, I thought. I pushed the door open, looked around, and stepped inside.

By the time I sensed anything, it was too late—the figure flew out from behind the door like a missile, plowed into my back, and took me down with a bone-crunching tackle that would’ve made Vince Lombardi cry tears of joy. My right cheekbone broke the fall, hitting the floor with a
whack
and bouncing a couple of times as my attacker tried to get me in a half-nelson. My head had been the subject of so much abuse in the preceding hours that I hardly felt a thing, but I’d had just about enough of being knocked around for one day. This was the last straw.

I let out a bloodcurdling scream, grabbed the guy’s head, and flipped his body over my shoulder, landing him hard on his back. I jumped up to a kneeling position, whipped the Beretta out, and shoved the barrel up my assailant’s nostril.

“Horst!” I exclaimed.

“Jack!” he cried. “I didn’t know it was you!”

“Jesus Christ, Horst! You’re lucky I didn’t blow your goddamned head off! Are you nuts?”

“Yes, I think it must be so,” he smiled impishly. I sat there for a minute until he finally said, “May I stand up now?”

I took a deep breath and stepped away. “Sure. Get up. Get up against the the wall so I can search you.”

“I don’t carry a weapon,” he assured me as he scooped himself off the floor. I pushed him against the wall and patted him down. Once I was sure he was clean, I stowed the Beretta and he collapsed with a sigh onto the single bed that occupied one side of the tiny studio apartment. A filthy kitchenette took up the other side, with a table, chair, and television set in between. There was a box of papers in an open closet, in the process of being rifled.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I said.

“I was about to ask you the same.”

“I’m not in a very good mood, Horst, so why don’t you just tell me who sent you up here?”

“Why should anyone send me? I’m simply robbing this apartment.” He shrugged innocently. “I hope you won’t tell Hanna about it. She would be quite disappointed in me.”

“Knock it off, Horst. You’re insulting my intelligence.”

“I suppose it’s a bit far-fetched,” he admitted. “But it’s the best I can think of at the moment.”

“For Christ’s sake, is everyone in this town a spy?”

“Most have tried it at one time or another,” he smiled.

I went to the window and peeked through the blinds, wondering if he was alone. “What were you looking for anyway?”

He shrugged. I picked up one of the documents in the box, which was nothing more than an overdue electricity bill.

“This is dangerous stuff you’re mixed up in.”

“Perhaps I can take care of myself,” he grinned.

“Yeah, sure, like your friend Melik,” I said, pulling the
box of papers out of the closet. I sat in the chair, grabbed a fistful, and started going through them.

“What about Melik?” he said, looking concerned. I realized that it hadn’t been much over an hour since it happened and Horst couldn’t know yet. My sense of time was a bit out of whack after the various head traumas of the morning.

“He a friend of yours?”

“My partner,” he said. “And yes, I suppose a friend, too. Where is he?”

“Dead,” I said flat out, not being in a particularly sensitive frame of mind. Horst’s face dropped, like he’d been punched in the gut, then he lowered his head and just stared at the floor. I felt bad, but it was better that he knew how things could go.

“I can’t believe it,” he said, shaking his head. “How does it happen? Was it an accident?”

“Oh no … Very deliberate. One of the bad guys killed him.”

“Killed?” he said incredulously. “Why
killed?’

“Because he was pointing a Luger at the guy’s head and he let down his guard.”

“But he wouldn’t have used it….”

“Then he shouldn’t have been pointing it,” I said sharply. It was the truth and Horst had better know it. “You don’t put a gun to someone’s head unless you’re capable of pulling the trigger. Especially not when the guy is someone like this guy.”

“Melik had a wife and a young child,” Horst said softly. “Who will tell them?”

“Nobody will tell them, at least not the truth,” I said. “It wouldn’t do them any good, anyway.” I continued examining Kovinski’s papers. There was nothing useful—overdue bills and overdrawn bank statements.

“But he was a hero,” Horst said. “Perhaps even he saved your life. Shouldn’t they know it?”

“I don’t know if he was a hero or not, Horst, and to tell you the truth, it doesn’t make a goddamned bit of difference if he was or he wasn’t, because he’s dead. And whatever they tell you, a dead hero is worthless, no good to anyone. Certainly not to his wife or kid. I’m very sorry for them, but it’s done and there’s nothing we can do to make it better. That’s just how it is. If you don’t like it, you’d better walk out the door right now and tell Sam you quit.”

He looked at me, thoroughly taken aback. “Since when did you know I am working for Sam?”

“I just figured it out,” I said.

“How?”

“You phoned someone this morning to tell them about the picture of Kovinski you found in my jacket. Right?”