The Berlin Conspiracy (33 page)

I reached the end of the hall and ducked into a doorway across from the exit. Even if the stairs were covered, I was out of options. I’d have to go in and take my chances.

The timer read 04:22.

I decided to wait for Fisher’s four-minute announcement to see if there were any more “Heroes” behind this door. At least I’d know what I was walking into.

The crowd finally let Kennedy continue:

The four-minute mark came and went with nothing from behind the door. I wiped the sweat off my palms, slipped the Luckys into my palm, and grabbed the door handle. …

Locked. …

Goddamm it! Kennedy would be lying on a slab at the morgue by the time I picked the dead bolt. I didn’t have the tools anyway. I tried kicking it in, but it wasn’t gonna give. Desperation creeping up on me, I looked around, spotted a fire extinguisher attached to the wall. Above it, behind glass, was just what I needed. I ran over, punched the window out, and grabbed the ax.

I noticed halfway up the hall that I was trailing blood. Locating a gash in my right palm, I hastily tied a handkerchief around it as I ran the rest of the way and went to work on the door. After a few solid blows, I was able to kick the bastard in.

Racing up the steps, I found the door leading onto the roof wide open. I dropped the ax and stepped back into the shadows, needing a minute to catch my breath and think things through. I drew a mental picture of the building’s L-shaped layout, placing myself at the southern end. The gunman would be above my room in the north wing, just past the ninety-degree turn. I’d have about sixty yards to cover.

I peeked out, trying to get a sense of how open the terrain was. An elevator support unit—a ten-foot-high brick structure at the center of the building—stood between me and where the sniper’s nest would be set up. I’d be exposed for about forty yards, but once there, I could locate the shooter and lay low until the right moment, when he was focused on the plaza with the president in his sights. About the only thing I had going for me was the element of surprise, so I’d damn well better make the most of it, I thought. I’d rush him
at full speed, come up from behind before he had time to react. I’d go for a head shot from point-blank range.

I turned my radio back on before stepping out onto the roof, just in time for the three-minute warning. Time was running out.

I slipped in behind the open door, scanned the area up and down. I was too far from the front of the building to see the stage, but now that I was out in the open, Kennedy’s voice was coming through loud and clear:

I couldn’t see any security from my position, but it was impossible that the shooter would be out there naked and vulnerable. If there was one of them, I might have a shot—a long shot—at killing him and still getting the sniper. If two guns were up there, well, the fat lady could start warming up.

I ducked out from behind the door and sprinted across the asphalt surface, hitting the safety of the brick wall sooner than I’d expected. I hadn’t seen anything, but I’d been moving, not looking. I edged around the structure and peered out toward the retaining wall at the front of the building. Still nothing. Not a sign of anybody or anything along the entire length of the wall. Or on the entire roof, for that matter.

I started to get a sinking feeling.

“TWO MINUTES … !” Fisher barked.

I stepped into the open, turned in a complete circle,
surveying the whole area. I was alone, completely fucking alone. I walked toward the front of the building, where I’d expected to find the assassin. As the plaza came into view, I could see President Kennedy gesturing emotionally from the speaker’s platform:

Jesus Christ, I thought, it’s gonna happen. I’d got it wrong and they were gonna murder the president right there in front of me and a million other witnesses.

“BIG DADDY TO BABYSITTER!” Fisher’s voice crackled out. “COME IN BABYSITTER! … OVER!”

I grabbed the radio like it was a life preserver. “This is Babysitter. … Go ahead, Big Daddy….” Come on, Fisher, I prayed, give me something! Give me a fucking clue!

“STAND BY TO RECEIVE SHADOW ONE! …REPEAT, I’M SENDING SHADOW ONE IN TO YOU NOW!… OVER!”

I went numb, actually numb in the face and hands. He was going to fire out of the window of my room, exactly the way I’d figured it. He hadn’t been waiting for me because they were sending him in at the last minute. Into my room, where Horst was locked to the bed like a lamb waiting for slaughter.

“FISHER, IT’S JACK TELLER!” I yelled into the
radio. “CHASE IS DEAD, I KILLED HIM! … THE OPERATION’S BLOWN! YOU HEAR ME, FISHER, IT’S OVER!”

“Jack?! … What the fuck’s going on?”

“CALL IT OFF!”

“Where the hell are you, Jack?”

“YOU KNOW WHERE I AM!” I bluffed desperately. “AND I’M TELLING YOU, HENRY, IF YOU SEND THAT KILLER IN HERE, I’M GONNA DROP HIM OUT THE FUCKING WINDOW!”

There was a short pause, then Fisher came back on the line.

“Look to your left, Jack,” he said. “The building across the street….”

It was a six-story apartment block, recently built.

“The balcony on the top floor, the one nearest to you.” I scanned across the face of the building until I found the one he meant. And there he was—Big Daddy, Henry E. Fisher, radio in his right hand, the left fully extended, giving me the finger.

“Fuck you, Jack,” he said with a smile, forming his hand into a gun. “Bang, bang, you’re dead. … Over and out, amigo.”

I was already sprinting toward the north exit when he finished his sentence. Hero would be on his way up and I’d be exposed, a sitting duck on the open roof. If I could get to the door before he did, I might have a fighting chance.

He beat me to it, stepping out onto the roof, pistol drawn, when I was still twenty yards short. He pivoted toward me and I launched myself as he lined me up in his sights….

“HRUMMPHH!” I could hear the air go out of him as I plowed into his midsection. We bounced off the door and went flying back into the building, landing in a pile at the top of the stairwell. He pulled himself onto his knees,
doubled over, holding his gut, struggling to draw a breath. I stood up, held the pack of Luckys to his ear, and pressed the trigger….

Click
… Nothing.

Either the damn thing misfired or I’d shot the pellet off into space during my flying tackle. Either way, “Hero” was getting his wind back and his pistol was moving around toward me. I kicked him hard in the gut, then again across the side of the head, sending him tumbling backward down the stairs. I don’t know if it was the kick or the fall that did it, but he landed with his head facing the wrong way on his shoulders. It looked very odd and I must’ve hesitated a moment at the sight before snapping out of it and hastily looking around for his gun. It was gone, lost in the shuffle …

“SIXTY SECONDS …” Fisher announced. “STAND BY. …”

I exploded into the hallway and up the corridor. Kennedy’s voice rose above the spellbound plaza as he built to a climax:

I burst through the door and found myself looking straight into the long barrel of a silencer-fitted .22. Shadow One was a big, Mediterranean-looking guy, athletic, with short dark wiry hair, a broad nose, and a thick black mustache. I saw from his position that he’d been a hairsbreadth away from putting a slug into Horst’s forehead and had swiveled the
gun toward the door at the last moment when he heard me coming through it. And I was trapped, as good as dead.

But he hesitated.

I don’t know why he did, and it couldn’t have been for more than a fraction of a second, but it felt like a damned eternity. There’s nothing like staring death in the face to make you feel alive. Every sound is amplified, every detail is crystal clear, every twitch catches the eye. I became aware of Horst’s movement in the same moment that I saw the killer’s finger squeeze down on the trigger. It happened quickly, more quickly than should’ve been possible—Horst stretched his long frame across the bed, grabbed something out of Chase’s briefcase, then shot to his feet. Extending himself as far as the handcuffs would allow, he brought his arm around and stabbed the killer in the jugular with the hypodermic needle.

A look of complete and utter shock replaced the killer’s detached expression. He managed to say
“Merd
—” just before Horst drove the plunger home, sending the Frenchman on what must’ve been the Cosmic Cocktail ride of all time. He stumbled backward for a few steps, then his legs gave way. He landed hard, his back propped up against the wall where he’d left the Tokarev. Hard to say whether the blank look in his eyes was that of a dead man or a vegetable, but either way the guy was traveling on a one-way ticket.

Horst and I shared a “Holy Shit!” look.

“THIRTY SECONDS!”

I grabbed the killer’s radio.

“FISHER!” I screamed into it.

“… Jesus Christ, Jack … Aren’t you dead yet?!” “No, but your shooter is!”

“Give it up, Jack!” He clicked off then came back on, announcing “TWENTY SECONDS! … STAND BY FOR FINAL COUNTDOWN. …”

“WAKE UP, HENRY! I’M USING YOUR SHOOTER’S RADIO, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE! …” I grabbed the killer by the collar and propped him up against the window. “LOOK AT THE HOTEL WINDOW! … SEE HIM, YOU STUPID FUCK?! AND I’M GONNA THROW THIS PIECE OF SHIT AND HIS RIFLE OUT THE WINDOW IF YOU DON’T CALL IT OFF!”

“TEN SECONDS …” he announced. “NINE … EIGHT …” I drew a deep breath and spoke into the radio again—quietly, absolutely calm.

“If you can hear me, Harvey, I want you to know that I’m dialing the phone. … I’m calling the West German police….”

“SIX … FIVE …”

“… And the first name of the many that I’m going to give them is Harvey King….”

“FOUR … THREE …” Then it stopped. Nothing for a moment, then …

“ABORT! … REPEAT … ABORT ACTION AND DISENGAGE! … ALL UNITS ABORT AND DISENGAGE!”

The wall wouldn’t hold back the cheer that filled the plaza with those words. They probably heard it in Moscow. I let the killer drop to the floor and freed Horst. He didn’t move, just sat there on the bed with a dazed look on his face.

I pulled him up and said, “Let’s get the hell out of here while we can.”

“Yes … yes …” he said, and headed for the exit. I stopped to pick up the killer’s handgun and looked up as Horst was going through the doorway.

“Wait!” I yelled, but it was too late, he was in the hallway. I heard the shots—three of them—and saw Horst fall away.

Christ. I get the same sick feeling now that I got then, even after all these years. Sudden shock and alarm, like you just stepped off a cliff. Then your stomach drops out and dread takes over as you wait to hit the ground.

I flew out the door, laying down fire wildly, killing Andy Johnson in a hail of bullets.
POP! POP! POP!
went his flesh.

Horst was lying on his side, holding his gut. He was bleeding badly and I could see he wasn’t going to make it, so I didn’t try to move him, I just rolled him onto my lap and held him. I didn’t care that they were coming for me. I wasn’t going to let him die alone.

“Don’t move,” I said.

He didn’t try to speak, just nodded. I could see that the pain was receding, but he was scared.

“You’ll be all right,” I said.

He coughed up some blood and said, “I thought we did win.”

“We did,” I answered. “We won … and you were the hero.” But I think he died without hearing it.

“There was no shooter,
Jack. No Roy Chase, either … No Andy Johnson, no dead Secret Service agent, and no Aleks Kovinski. Poof, like magic, they all disappear. It never happened.”

“What about Horst?”

“Shot and killed while resisting arrest for the murder of a Canadian businessman named Ian Howe—who was found floating in a canal with a spear through his lung.”

I gave Sam a look, but he kept his eyes focused on an open field where an impromptu game of soccer was in progress. I was too worn out, too depressed, too drained to protest. It wouldn’t change anything anyway. The whole thing had already been cleaned up and swept under the rug. Except for me, of course. I was a loose end. I’d been walking aimlessly for hours, going over the events of the last five days, trying to fit the pieces together. Sam had been waiting for my call
when I finally got the full picture and we were standing in the Tiergarten a half hour later.