The Cathar Secret: A Lang Reilly Thriller (26 page)

     After years of obscurity, it was understandable why Heim was less than thrilled to be contacted by the son of a guard he had known only briefly before the man had been transferred to the much larger camp at Auschwitz. The damned old man passed along not only Heim's present name to his son but somehow his location as well.

     Gratz's son was an idiot. That was clear to Heim. The small American boy was no more his nephew than the doctor was. The child did little but cry and call for his "Mommy." There was little doubt the boy was not here voluntarily. Not only had the younger Gratz subjected himself to kidnapping charges, but he was also likely to bring the authorities down on Heim's head, too.

     Heim had every intention of dying in bed, not in prison. Or, worse, should the Israelis be alerted to his whereabouts, at the end of a rope. He had hoped as years passed the Federal Republic would see the absurdity of the oxymoron of "war crimes," relent, and let old men live out their lives. But no, world Jewry would never permit it. Heim was facing a very real possibility of hanging if he didn't get rid of Gratz, his friend, and the little boy in a hurry.

     But how to make the best of a very bad situation?

     Not only was Gratz stupid; he was insane. He was babbling some sort of rubbish about the boy being the incarnation of a prisoner at Auschwitz
who knew where treasure was hidden. Heim supposed he should be thankful the man was imbalanced in the head. A sane man would have simply turned him in for the reward, claiming only to be a good German.

     "Yes," Heim admitted reluctantly, "I am familiar with the process of hypnotism. It has been taught in Austrian medical schools since Freud."

     "That is why I contacted you," Gratz said, as though bragging of an accomplishment. "My father said you sometimes used it in your, er, work. Particularly posthypnotic suggestion."

     Heim tried not to squirm in his chair, a carved wooden rocker that provided more local Bavarian color than actual comfort. Damn the senior Gratz for his loose lips! He had tried posthypnotic suggestion to see if he could make a man forget the pain of surgery, a boon to an army running out of anesthetic. Of course, some sort of trials had to be performed on the prisoners before the experiment had any validity; the more painful, the better.

     He lifted a half-full cup of coffee, long cold, before recalling the last acidic sip, and returned it to the table. "There is a problem with what you suggest: a person, even a child, must be a willing subject."

     The man who called himself Schect stubbed out a cigarette into an overflowing ash tray and leaned forward, putting his elbows on the dark wood of the table. "That should be no problem. You hypnotized prisoners."

     Once cut open, a man becomes willing to try anything to diminish the pain, Heim thought. But he said nothing.

     "Easy enough," Gratz said. "We tell him we only want to make him sleep so we can return him to his mother."

     "And when you have what you want?" Heim asked, knowing the answer.

     "That is not your concern,
Herr Doktor
," Gratz said.

     Schect ran a finger across his throat.

     Heim slowly got to his feet, shaking his head. "Not only do I doubt the child can be regressed under the circumstances you suggest, posthypnotic suggestion lasts at best only a few minutes after the subject is brought back. Besides, killing Jews is one thing; murder of a little Aryan boy is quite another." He turned toward the door, then stopped, speaking over his shoulder. "And, if you believe in reincarnation, you surely are expecting
Rot Bart
to emerge from his mountain at any moment."

     The reference was to Germanic legend that Emperor Frederick "Red
Beard" Barbarossa had not died on the Third Crusade but slept under a mountain, awaiting his subjects' greatest hour of need.

     "In any event, I'm not interested."

     "Not quite so fast,
Herr Doktor.
" Gratz was standing. "You have no idea of the riches that we can share."

     Heim snorted. If these men were willing to kill a child, what were the odds they would let him live? "At my age, I have few needs, only a desire to be left alone. Now, if you will . . ."

     "Perhaps you have no need." Gratz's voice had turned ugly. "But we do. In fact, we'll all share the treasure or my friend and I will share the reward reporting you to the authorities would bring."

     Heim came close to reminding Gratz that a kidnapped child might be difficult to explain but held back. The better idea might be to play along with these fools for the moment and wait for an opportunity to shed himself of them.

     Perhaps even rescue the little boy.

     The last thought startled him. It had come from nowhere, certainly not from his past. He was objective enough to realize the inconsistency. Perhaps, after ninety years, he had seen enough death, enough brutality. Perhaps his last act might be one of kindness.

     Perhaps.

472 Lafayette Drive

10:32
A.M.
Local Time

G
URT WAS DOING SOMETHING IN THE
kitchen when Lang walked in. The wideness of her eyes told Lang she had not heard him pull into the garage or greet Manfred, who had been playing with Grumps outside. Wagner booming from the sound system was the likely reason.

     "A surprise." She had to shout above the music. "You are not going to the office?"

     He shook his head and stepped over to the cabinet to lower the volume of the Valkyries' flight. "Wanted to talk to you first, ask your opinion. If your lover was coming over, he'll have to wait."

     Gurt tossed a rag into the sink. "I have had as many lovers as times you have wanted my opinion before you act. You ask my advice only after you are in a mess. What is now different?"

     Lang sat at the kitchen table, a disk of glass supported by wrought-iron frame and legs. "The difference is this time we have a choice as to whether we'll get involved. Before, someone was out to get us."

     Gurt smiled, regarding him the same way she looked at Manfred when the child came up with a particularly startling bit of misinformation. "'
We
'? '
Us
'? It was you someone was trying to eliminate and I who chose to try and help."

     "Yeah, I can understand why you see it that way."

     She held up a cup and he shook his head. Filling it from the Mr. Coffee
for herself, she sat across the glass. "Now you want to help Paige and Wynton get back their son, no?"

     Not even bothering to wonder how Gurt had read him as easily as the morning's newspaper, Lang leaned forward, taking one of her hands in his. "Let me tell you what we learned this morning."

     When he finished a recount of his time at FBI headquarters, he said, "If it were Manfred that had been grabbed . . ."

     Over the rim of the cup, Gurt's eyes were locked onto his. "But it is not so. Whatever influ . . . , er . . ."

     "Influence."

     "Whatever influence you may have with the authorities or people like Miles, yes, use it."

     "But?"

     She set the cup down, withdrawing her hand from his. "But you think of going after the kidnappers yourself, perhaps even to Germany, no?"

     "It had entered my mind."

     Gurt's gaze left his, scanning the wall behind him. "You made a promise."

     "That's why we're having this conversation."

     She absently reached for her purse under the table, remembered she had quit smoking, and then clasped her hands in her lap. "Perhaps you can help without leaving the country."

     "I can try. But if not?"

     "We will jump off that bridge when we come to it. Is there anything I can do, anything that does no chance of making Manfred an orphan?"

     Lang thought about that for a moment. "As a matter of fact, yeah, there is."

     He began to explain.

Inman Park

Thirty Minutes Later

G
URT PULLED UP IN FRONT OF
the cottage with the scabrous peeling pale yellow paint. The sign in front, announcing the benefits of hypnotism, confirmed she had come to the right place, the office of I. J. Balisha. She sat in the car for a full minute, absorbing the house's surroundings. As far as she could see, homes had been recently renovated, yards neatly kept, paint touched up. This one was the poor relative at the family reunion.

     Getting out of the car, she mounted the three steps to the porch with caution. A number of boards were either missing or obviously loose. She thought she saw motion behind the curtained windows before she rang the bell.

     "Yes?"

     She was looking at a tall, dark man in a jacket that reached his knees. "Dr. Balisha?"

     He swung the door open, "I am he. How may I be of service to you?"

     She noted his nervous glance up and down the street. Either Dr. Balisha was anticipating unwanted company or he wasn't eager for his neighbors to see what was going on.

     The darkness of the interior and a smell she couldn't quite place tempted Gurt to conduct her business here on the front porch, but she said, "May I come in?"

     Her answer was a brilliant smile and a sweeping bow, "But of course."

     The man was as oily as your average change and lube shop. Instinct made Gurt keep close to the wall as he led her down a dim corridor. Somewhere in the background was music, sort of. Tinkling bells, short notes on a flute, and a wailing woman's voice. The sound and the odor suddenly became familiar: she had experienced both in the Indian restaurant where Lang occasionally succeeded getting her to try some gastronomic masochism.

     The man stopped, motioning her into a room. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the light, or rather the lack thereof. An old-fashioned oil lamp had been converted to electricity but served more to create shadows than provide illumination. A table or desk sat in front of what could be a couch. The furniture floated on a sea of abstract designs on a hemp and wool reproduction of a Persian rug. The four frames on the walls did not hold the usual diplomas and licenses but illustrations from
The Karma Sutra
, sex acts far more imaginative than the most "adult" magazines.

     For a moment, Gurt wondered exactly what sort of business Dr. Balisha conducted in addition to hypnotism.

     He closed the door behind him. There was no mistaking the click of the automatic lock.

     He slid behind the desk and sat, still smiling. "You have the advantage of me, madam. You know my name but . . ."

     Gurt remained standing. She knew the psychological advantage of height advantage when questioning someone. "Gurt Fuchs."

     He waited for her to continue until it was clear she was not going to. "What may I do for you, Ms. Fuchs?"

     "A few days, perhaps a week ago, you hypnotized a child. A woman named Marcie Rollens brought him here."

     He made a steeple of slender and bejeweled fingers. "I hypnotize many people, including children. The process is helpful in treating behavior patterns, academic difficulties, and, shall we say, other problems."

     The dark face remained impassive if slightly curious, without stress. Gurt had interrogated spies, defectors, even some of the Agency's own employees. Either this man had nothing to hide or he had surprising control of his emotions.

     "How did Ms. Rollens contact you?"

     Balisha stared at her for a moment as though not quite sure what she
meant before pointing to a telephone in front of him. "By phone as do most of my clients."

     Evasive or overly literal?

     "How did she know how to do that?"

     Again, the broad smile as he reached under the desk and produced a phone book. He opened it to a quarter-page ad. "I must assume she . . . what do you say? Let her fingers do the walking?"

     He smiled even wider at his joke.

     "You did not know Ms. Rollens before she called to bring the child?"

     The smile vanished. "No, but I have had many calls since her newspaper article. I do not understand the purpose of your questions."

     Gurt leaned forward. "The child, Wynn-Three, he's called, was kidnapped."

     Gurt was looking at true astonishment or a consummate actor.

     "Kidnapped? Who . . . ? Surely you don't think I . . . ?"

     Gurt let him stammer a moment or two. Then, "I don't think anything. How did you know to take him back to the life where he was a prisoner?"

     Balisha looked at her blankly. "I did not know at all. In these cases, you take the subject back to childhood, then birth and then beyond."

     "You have done this before?"

     "I had many subjects who remembered a life before the current one. Why are you asking me these questions?"

     "Did Marcie Rollens ask you to regress the child?"

     Balisha crossed his arms and shook his head. "You are not the police. I will not be questioned like a criminal."

     Gurt gave the room an obvious glance. "I see no licenses, no diplomas. I think perhaps the authorities would like to know you charge for hypnotizing people."

     Pure bluff. She had no idea if hypnotists needed licensing.

     Apparently, they did.

     Balisha stood and came around the table, his face only inches from hers. She could smell the curry on his breath. "You will regret any trouble . . ."

     He got no further. The words were choked off by Gurt's fist as it tightened the collar of his jacket, squeezing his throat closed. At the same time, she jerked him forward, his hands futilely trying to pry hers loose. His natural reaction was to resist by pulling back. Using his superior
weight against him, a single push backwards sent him stumbling against the desk.

     Without loosening her grasp, Gurt put her face within inches of his. "And you will regret ever threatening me again." She gave the fabric of his jacket another twist, making his eyes bulge as he struggled to breathe. "Do you understand?"