The Holcroft Covenant (40 page)

“You are!”

“I’m not.”

“What?”

“I’m only half of the Tinamou. To be sure, the better half, but still only half. For years I trained another; he is my alternate in the field. His expertness has been taught, his brilliance acquired; next to the real Tinamou, he’s the best on earth.”

The scholar stared at the blond man in astonishment … and with awe. “He’s one of us?
Ein Sonnenkind?
”

“Of course not! He’s a paid killer; he knows nothing but an extraordinary life-style in which every need and appetite is gratified by the extraordinary sums he earns. He’s also aware that one day he may have to pay the price for his way of living, and he accepts that. He’s a professional.”

Kessler sank back in the chair and loosened his collar. “I must say, you never cease to amaze me.”

“I’m not finished,” replied Tennyson. “An event is taking place in London shortly, a gathering of heads of state. It’s the perfect opportunity. The Tinamou will be caught.”

“He’ll be what?”

“You heard correctly.” Tennyson smiled. “The Tinamou will be captured, a weapon in his hands, the odd caliber and the bore markings traceable to three previous assassinations. He will be caught and killed by the man who has been tracking him for nearly six years. A man who, for his own protection, wants no credit, wants no mention of his name. Who calls in the intelligence authorities of his adopted country. John Tennyson, European correspodent of the
Guardian
.”

“My
God
,” whispered Kessler. “How will you do it?”

“Even you can’t know that. But there’ll be a dividend as powerful as Geneva itself. The word will go out, in print, that the Tinamou kept private records. They haven’t been found, and thus can be presumed to have been stolen by someone. That someone will be ourselves. So, in death, the Tinamou serves us still.”

Kessler shook his head in wonder. “You think exotically; that’s your essential gift.”

“Among others,” said the blond man matter-of-factly. “And our newfound alliance with MI Five may be helpful. Other intelligence services may be more sophisticated, but none are better.” Tennyson slapped the arm of his chair. “Now. Let’s get back to our unknown enemy. His identity is in the words spoken in that alley. I’ve heard them! I know it.”

“We’ve exhausted that approach.”

“We’ve only begun.” The blond man reached for a pencil and paper. “Now, from the beginning. We’ll write down everything he said, everything you can remember.”

The scholar sighed. “From the beginning,” he repeated. “Very well. According to Holcroft, the man’s first
words referred to the killing in France, the fact that Holcroft had not hesitated to fire his pistol then.…”

Kessler spoke. Tennyson listened and interrupted and asked for repetitions of words and phrases. He wrote furiously. Forty minutes passed.

“I can’t go on any longer,” said Kessler. “There’s no more I can tell you.”

“Again, the
eagles
,” countered the blond man harshly. “Say the words exactly as Holcroft said them.”

“Eagles?… ‘You won’t stop the eagles. Not this time.’ Could he have meant the Luftwaffe? The Wehrmacht?”

“Not likely.” Tennyson looked down at the pages in front of him. He tapped his finger at something he had written down. “Here. ‘Your Wolfsschanze.’
Your
Wolfsschanze.… Meaning ours, not theirs.”

“What are you talking about?” said Kessler. “We
are
Wolfsschanze; the men of Wolfsschanze are
Sonnenkinder!
”

Tennyson ignored the interruption. “Von Stauffenberg, Olbricht, Von Falkenhausen, and Höpner. Rommel called them ‘the true eagles of Germany.’ They were the insurrectionists, the Führer’s would-be assassins. All were shot; Rommel, ordered to take his own life.
Those
are the eagles he referred to.
Their
Wolfsschanze, not ours.”

“Where does it lead us? For God’s
sake
, Johann, I’m exhausted. I can’t go on!”

Tennyson had covered a dozen pages of paper; now he shuffled them, underlining words, circling phrases. “You may have said enough,” he replied. “It’s here … in this section. He used the words ‘butchers and clowns,’ and then, ‘you won’t stop the eagles.’… Only seconds later, Holcroft told him that the account would be tied up for years, that there were conditions … ‘the money frozen, sent back into the ground.’ The man repeated the phrase ‘back into the ground,’ saying it was the flaw. But then he added that there would be ‘no scorched earth.’ ‘Scorched earth.’ ‘There will be no … 
scorched earth
.’ ”

The blond man’s upper body tensed. He leaned back in the chair, his sculptured face twisted in concentration, his cold eyes staring rigidly at the words on the paper. “It couldn’t be … after all these years. Operation Barbarossa! The ‘scorched earth’ of Barbarossa! Oh, my God, the Nachrichtendienst. It’s the Nachrichtendienst!”

“What are you talking about?” Kessler said. “ ‘Barbarossa’ was Hitler’s first invasion north, a magnificent victory.”

“He called it a victory. The Prussians called it a disaster. A hollow victory, written in blood. Whole divisions unprepared, decimated.… ‘We took the land,’ the generals said. ‘We took the worthless, scorched earth of Barbarossa.’ Out of it came the Nachrichtendienst.”

“What was it?”

“An intelligence unit. Rarefied, exclusively Junker, a corps of aristocrats. Later, there were those who thought it was a Gehlen operation, designed to sow distrust between the Russians and the West. But it wasn’t; it was solely its own. It loathed Hitler; it scorned the Schutzstaffel—‘SS garbage’ was the term it used; it hated the commanders of the Luftwaffe. All were called ‘butchers and clowns.’ It was above the war, above the party. It was only for Germany.
Their
Germany.”

“Say what you mean, Johann!” shouted Kessler.

“The Nachrichtendienst survives. It’s the intruder. It wants to destroy Geneva. It will stop at nothing to abort the Fourth Reich before it’s born.”

Noel waited on the bridge, watching the lights of Paris flicker like clusters of tiny candles. He had reached Helden at Gallimard; she had agreed to meet him after work on the Pont Neuf. He had tried to persuade her to drive to the hotel in Argenteuil, but she had declined his offer.

“You promised me days, weeks, if I wished,” he said.

“I promised us both, my darling, and we’ll have them. But not Argenteuil. I’ll explain when I see you.”

It was barely five-fifteen; the winter night descended on Paris quickly, and the chill of the river wind penetrated him. He pulled up the collar of his secondhand overcoat to ward off the cold. He looked at his watch again; its hands had not moved. How could they have? No more than ten seconds had elapsed.

He felt like a young man waiting for a girl he had met at a country club in the summer moonlight, and he smiled to himself, feeling awkward and embarrassed, not wanting to acknowledge his anxiety. He was not in the moonlight on some warm summer’s night. He was on a bridge in Paris, and the air was cold, and he was dressed in a secondhand overcoat, and in his pocket was a gun.

He saw her walking onto the bridge. She was wearing the black raincoat, her blond hair encased by a dark-red scarf that framed her face. Her pace was steady, neither rapid nor casual; she was a lone woman going home from her place of work. Except for her striking features—only hinted at in the distance—she was like thousands of other women in Paris, heading home in the early evening.

She saw him. He started walking toward her, but she held up her hand, a signal for him to remain where he was. He paid no attention, wanting to reach her quickly, his arms held out. She walked into them and they embraced, and he felt warm in the comfort of being with
her again. She pulled her head back and looked at him, then pretended to be firm, but her eyes smiled.

“You must never run on a bridge,” she said. “A man running across a bridge stands out. One strolls over the water; one doesn’t race.”

“I missed you. I don’t give a damn.”

“You must learn to. How was Berlin?”

He put his arm around her shoulder and they started toward the quai Saint-Bernard, and the Left Bank. “I’ve got a lot to tell you, some good, some not so good. But if learning something is progress, I think we’ve taken a couple of giant steps. Have you heard from your brother?”

“Yes. This afternoon. He called an hour after you did. His plans have changed; he can be in Paris tomorrow.”

“That’s the best news you could give me. At least, I think it is. I’ll let you know tomorrow.” They walked off the bridge and turned left along the riverbank. “Did you miss me?”

“Noel, you’re mad. You left yesterday afternoon. I barely had time to get home, bathe, have a very-much-needed night’s sleep, and get to work.”

“You went home? To your apartment?”

“No, I—” She stopped and looked up at him, smiling. “Very good, Noel Holcroft, new recruit. Interrogate casually.”

“I don’t feel casual.”

“You promised not to ask that question.”

“Not specifically. I asked you if you were married, or living with someone—to which I got a negative to the first and a very oblique answer to the second—but I never actually promised not to try and find out where you live.”

“You implied it, my darling. One day I’ll tell you, and you’ll see how foolish you are.”

“Tell me now. I’m in love. I want to know where my woman lives.”

The smile disappeared from her lips. Then it returned, and she glanced up at him again. “You’re like a little boy practicing a new word. You don’t know me well enough to love me; I told you that.”

“I forgot. You like women.”

“They’re among my best friends.”

“But you wouldn’t want to marry one.”

“I don’t want to marry anyone.”

“Good. It’s less complicated. Just move in with me for the next ten years, exercisable options on both sides.”

“You say such nice things.”

They stopped at an intersection. He turned Helden to him, both his hands on her arms. “I say them because I mean them.”

“I believe you,” she said, looking at him curiously, her eyes part questioning, part fearful.

He saw the fear; it bothered him, and so he smiled. “Love me a little?”

She could not bring the smile to her lips. “I think I love you more than a little. You’re a problem I didn’t want. I’m not sure I can handle it.”

“That’s even better.” He laughed and took her hand to cross the street “It’s nice to know you don’t have all the answers.”

“Did you believe I did?”

“I thought you thought so.”

“I don’t.”

“I know.”

The restaurant was half filled with diners. Helden asked for a table in the rear, out of sight of the entrance. The proprietor nodded. It was apparent that he could not quite fathom why this
belle femme
would come into his establishment with such a poorly dressed companion. In his eyes was the comment: things were not going well for the girls of Paris these days. Nights.

“He doesn’t approve of me,” said Holcroft.

“There’s hope for you, though. You grew in his estimation when you specified expensive whiskey. He grinned; didn’t you see?”

“He was looking at my jacket. It came from a somewhat better rack than the overcoat.”

Helden laughed. “That overcoat’s purpose was not high fashion. Did you use it in Berlin?”

“I used it. I wore it when I picked up a whore. Are you jealous?”

“Not of anyone accepting an offer from you dressed like that.”

“She was a vision of loveliness.”

“You’re lucky. She was probably an O
DESSA
agent
and you’ve come down with a social disease, as planned. See a doctor before you see me again.”

Noel took her hand. There was no humor in his voice when he spoke. “The O
DESSA’S
no concern of ours. Neither is the Rache. That’s one—or two—of the things I learned in Berlin. It’s doubtful either of them knows anything about Geneva.”

Helden was stunned. “But what about Beaumont? You said he was O
DESSA
, that he followed you to Rio.”

“I think he is O
DESSA
, and he did follow me, but not because of Geneva. He’s tied in with Graff. Somehow he found out I was looking for Johann von Tiebolt;
that
was why he followed me. Not Geneva. I’ll know more when I speak to your brother tomorrow. Anyway, Beaumont’ll be out of the picture in a few days. Kessler’s taking care of it. He said he’d make a call to someone in the Bonn government.”

“It’s that simple?”

“It’s not that difficult. Any hint of O
DESSA
, especially in the military, is enough to start a battery of inquiries. Beaumont’ll be pulled in.”

“If it’s not the O
DESSA
, or the Rache, who is it?”

“That’s part of what I’ve got to tell you. I had to get rid of the mackinaw and the cap.”

“Oh?” Helden was confused by the non sequitur.

He told her why, playing down the violence in the dark alleyway. Then he described the conversation with Kessler, realizing as he came to the end that he could not omit the murder of the unknown man in the leather jacket. He would tell her brother about it tomorrow; to withhold it from Helden now would serve no purpose. When he had finished, she shuddered, pressing her fingers into the palm of her hand.

“How
horrible
. Did Kessler have any idea who he was, where he came from?”

“Not really. We went over everything he said a half-dozen times, trying to figure it out, but there wasn’t that much. In Kessler’s opinion he was part of a neo-Nazi group—descendants of the party, Kessler called them. A splinter faction that has no use for the O
DESSA.
”

“How would they know about the account in Geneva?”

“I asked Kessler that. He said that the sort of manipulations required to get that money out of Germany
couldn’t have been kept as quiet as we think; that someone somewhere could have learned about it.”

“But Geneva is
based
on secrecy. Without it, it would collapse.”

“Then it’s a question of degree. When is a secret a secret? What separates confidential information from highly classified data? A handful of people found out about Geneva and want to stop us from getting the money and using it the way it’s supposed to be used. They want it for themselves, so they’re not going to expose it.”