Update coming thru

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dawno2008:
Wow loving this big time Weldon op,keep it coming

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For those who pressed for further information, a post-office box in Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles, under the name of Samuel Buonoventura, Limited, was listed. And, for the few who insisted on a telephone number, Sam’s was to be given.

  Noel had agreed to phone Buonoventura once a week; he would do the same with the answering service.

  By Friday morning, he had an uneasy feeling about his decision. He was taking himself out of a garden he had cultivated to walk into an unfamiliar forest.

  Nothing is as it was for you. Nothing can ever be the same.

  Suppose he could not find the Von Tiebolt children. Suppose they were dead, their remains no more than graves in a Brazilian cemetery? They had disappeared five years ago in Rio de Janeiro; what made him think he could make them reappear? And if he could not, would the survivors of Wolfsschanze strike? He was afraid. But fear itself did not cover everything, thought Holcroft as he walked to the corner of Seventy-third Street and Third Avenue. There were ways to handle fear. He could take the Geneva document to the authorities, to the State Department, and tell them what he knew of Peter Baldwin and Ernst Manfredi and a doorman named Jack. He could e 
xpose the massive theft of thirty years ago, and grateful thousands over the world would see to it that he was protected.

  That was the sanest thing to do, but somehow sanity and self-protection were not so important. Not now. There was a man in agony thirty years ago. And that man was his rationale.

  He hailed a cab, struck by an odd thought, one he knew was in the deep recesses of his imagination. It was the “something else” that drove him into the unfamiliar forest.

  He was assuming a guilt that was not his. He was taking on the sins of Heinrich Clausen.

  Amends must be made.

  “Six-thirty Fifth Avenue, please,” he said to the driver as he climbed into the cab. It was the address of the Brazilian Consulate.

  The hunt had begun.

“That’s kind of open ended, isn’t it?”

“It’s the best you’ll get. Those memories are, indeed, indelibly printed.”

“But for now you’ll do nothing?”

“You have my word. It’s not lightly given, nor will it be lightly taken back.”

“What would change it?”

“If you disappeared, for one thing.”

“I’ll stay in touch.”

Althene Holcroft watched her son walk out of the room. Her face—so tense, so rigid, only moments ago—was relaxed. Her thin lips formed a smile; her wide eyes were reflective, in them a look of quiet satisfaction and strength.

She reached for the telephone on her desk, pressed the single button O, and seconds later spoke.

“Overseas operator, please. I’d like to place a call to Geneva, Switzerland.”

He needed a professionally acceptable reason to close up Holcroft, Incorporated. Questions of substance could not be asked. The survivors of Wolfsschanze were killers for whom questions were too easily construed as interference. He had to disappear legitimately.… But one did not disappear legitimately: One found plausible explanations that gave the appearance of legitimacy.

The appearance of legitimacy.

Sam Buonoventura.

Not that Sam wasn’t legitimate: He was. He was one of the best construction engineers in the business. But Sam had followed the sun so long he had blind spots. He was a fifty-year-old professional drifter, a City College graduate from Tremont Avenue, in the Bronx, who had found a life of instant gratification in the warmer climes.

A brief tour of duty in the Army Corps of Engineers had convinced Buonoventura that there was a sweeter, more generous world beyond the borders of the United States, preferably south of the Keys. All one had to be was good—good in a job that was part of a larger job in which a great deal of money was invested. And during the fifties and sixties, the construction explosion in Latin America and the Caribbean was such that it might have been created for someone like Sam. He built a reputation among corporations and governments as the building tyrant who got things done in the field.

Once having studied blueprints, labor pools, and budgets, if Sam told his employers that a hotel or an airport or a dam would be operational within a given period of time, he was rarely in error beyond four percent. He was also an architect’s dream, which meant that he did not consider himself an architect.


Noel had worked with Buonoventura on two jobs outside the country, the first in Costa Rica, where if it had not been for Sam, Holcroft would have lost his life. The engineer had insisted that the well-groomed, courteous architect from the classy side of Manhattan learn to use a handgun, not just a hunting rifle from Abercrombie & Fitch. They were building a postal complex in the back country, and it was a far cry from the cocktail lounges of the Plaza and the Waldorf, and from San José. The architect had thought the weekend exercise ridiculous, but courtesy demanded compliance. Courtesy, and Buonoventura’s booming voice.

By the end of the following week, however, the architect was profoundly grateful. Thieves had come down from the hills to steal construction explosives. Two men had raced through the camp at night, they’d crashed into Noel’s shack as he slept. When they realized the explosives were not there one man had run outside, shouting instructions to his accomplices.

“¡Matemos el gringo!”

But the gringo understood the language. He reached his gun—the handgun provided by Sam Buonoventura—and shot his would-be killer.

Sam had only one comment: “Goddamn. In some cultures I’d have to take care of you for the rest of your life.”

Noel reached Buonoventura through a shipping company in Miami. He was in the Dutch Antilles, in the town of Willemstad, on the island of Curaçao.

“How the hell are you, Noley?” Sam shouted, over the phone. “Christ, it must be four, five years! How’s your pistol arm?”

“Haven’t used it since the colinas, and never expect to use it again. How are things with you?”

“These mothers got money to burn down here, so I’m lighting a few matches. You looking for work?”

“No. A favor.”

“Name it.”

“I’m going to be out of the country for a number of months on private business. I want a reason for not being in New York, for not being available. A reason that people won’t question. I’ve got an idea, Sam, and wondered if you could help me make it work.”


“If we’re both thinking the same thing, sure I can.”

They were thinking the same thing. It was not out of the ordinary for long-range projects in faraway places to employ consulting architects, men whose names would not appear on schematics or blueprints but whose skills would be used. The practice was generally confined to those areas where the hiring of native talent was a question of local pride. The inherent problem, of course, was that all too frequently the native talent lacked sufficient training and experience. Investors covered their risks by employing highly skilled outside professionals who corrected and amended the work of the locals, seeing the projects through to completion.

“Have you got any suggestions?” Noel asked.

“Hell, yes. Take your pick of half a dozen underdeveloped countries. Africa, South America, even some of the islands here in the Antilles and the Grenadines. The internationals are moving in like spiders, but the locals are still sensitive. The consulting jobs are kept separate and quiet; graft is soaring.”

“I don’t want a job, Sam. I want a cover. Someplace I can name, someone I can mention who’ll back me up.”

“Why not me? I’ll be buried in this motherlode for most of the year. Maybe more. I’ve got two marinas and a full-scale yacht club to go to when the hotel’s finished. I’m your man, Noley.”

“That’s what I was hoping,”

“That’s what I figured. I’ll give you the particulars and you let me know where I can reach you in case any of your high-society friends want to throw a tea dance for you.”

Holcroft placed his two draftsmen and his secretary in new jobs by Wednesday. As he had suspected, it was not difficult; they were good people. He made fourteen telephone calls to project-development executives at companies where his designs were under consideration, astonished to learn that of the fourteen, he was the leading contender in eight. Eight! If all came through, the fees would have totaled more than he had earned during the past five years.

But not two million dollars; he kept that in the back of his mind. And if it was not in the back of his mind, the survivors of Wolfsschanze were.

The telephone-answering service was given specific instructions. Holcroft, Incorporated, was unavailable at the time for architectural projects. The company was involved in an overseas commission of considerable magnitude. If the caller would leave his name and number …

It’s possible he was right. If it can be done. God knows it’s overdue. Whatever Heinrich touched, very little of value and truth was the result.” Althene paused, her face suddenly strained. “You were the one exception. Perhaps this is the other.”

Noel got out of the chair and went to his mother. He took her by the shoulders and drew her to him. “That man in Geneva said you were incredible. You are.”

Althene pulled back. “He said that? ‘Incredible’?”

“Yes.”

“Ernst Manfredi,” she whispered.

“You know him?” asked Holcroft.

“It’s a name that goes back many years. He’s still alive then.”

Noel did not answer her question. “How did you know it was he?”

“A summer afternoon in Berlin. He was there. He helped us get out. You and I. He got us on the plane, gave me money. Dear God.…” Althene disengaged herself from her son’s arms and walked across the room, toward the desk. “He called me ‘incredible’ then, that afternoon. He said they would hunt me, find me. Find us. He said he would do what he could. He told me what to do, what to say. An unimpressive little Swiss banker was a giant that afternoon. My God, after all these years …”


Noel watched his mother, his astonishment complete. “Why didn’t he say anything? Why didn’t he tell me?”

Althene turned, facing her son but not looking at him. She was staring beyond him, seeing things he could not see. “I think he wanted me to find out for myself. This way. He was not a man to call in old debts indiscriminately.” She sighed. “I won’t pretend the questions are put to rest. I promise nothing. If I decide to take any action, I’ll give you ample warning. But for the time being I won’t interfere.”

5

  Althene Holcroft sat behind the desk in her study and glared at the words of the letter she held in her hand. Her chiseled, angular features—the high cheekbones, the aquiline nose, the wide-set eyes beneath arched, defined brows—were as taut, as rigid, as her posture in the chair. Her thin, aristocratic lips were tight; her breathing was steady, but each breath was too controlled, too deep, for normalcy. She read Heinrich Clausen’s letter as one studying a statistical report that contradicted information previously held to be incontrovertible.

  Across the room, Noel stood by a curving window that looked out on the rolling lawn and gardens behind the Bedford Hills house. A number of shrubs were covered with burlap; the air was cold, and the morning frost produced intermittent patches of light gray on the green grass.

  Holcroft turned from the scene outside and looked at his mother, trying desperately to conceal his fear, to control the occasional trembling that came upon him when he thought about last night. He could not allow the terror he felt to be seen by his mother. He wondered what thoughts were going through her head, what memories were triggered by the sight of the handwritten words in blue ink put down by a man she once had loved, then had grown to despise. Whatever she was thinking, it would remain private until she chose to speak. Althene communicated only that which she cared to convey deliberately.

  She seemed to sense his gaze and raised her eyes to his, but only briefly. She returned to the letter, allowing a briefer moment to brush away a stray lock that had fallen from the gray hair that framed her face. Noel wandered aimlessly toward the desk, glancing at the bookcases and photographs on the wall. The room reflected the owner, he mused. Graceful, even elegant; but, withal, there was a pervading sense of activity. The photographs showed men and women on horses at the hunt, in sailboats in rough weather, on skis in mountain snow. There was no denying it: There was an undercurrent of masculinity in this very feminine room. It was his mother’s study, her sanctuary where she repaired for private moments of consideration. But it could have belonged to a man.

  He sat down in the leather chair in front of the desk and lighted a cigarette with a gold Colibri, a parting gift from a young lady who had moved out of his apartment a month ago. His hand trembled again; he gripped the lighter as tightly as he could.

  “That’s a dreadful habit,” said Althene, her eyes remaining on the letter. “I thought you were going to give it up.”

  “I have. A number of times.”

  “Mark Twain said that. At least be original.”

  Holcroft shifted his position in the chair, feeling awkward. “You’ve read it several times now. What do you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” said Althene, placing the letter on the desk in front of her. “He wrote it; it’s his handwriting, his way of expressing himself. Arrogant even in remorse.”

  “You agree it’s remorse then?”

  “It would appear so. On the surface, at any rate. I’d want to know a great deal more. I have a number of questions about this extraordinary financial undertaking. It’s beyond anything conceivable.”

  “Questions lead to other questions, mother. The men in Geneva don’t want that.”

  “Does it matter what they want? As I understand you, although you’re being elliptical, they’re asking you to give up a minimum of six months of your life and probably a good deal more.”

  Again, Noel felt awkward. He had decided not to show her the document from La Grande Banque. If she was adamant about seeing it, he could always produce it. If she was not, it was better that way; the less she knew, the better. He had to keep her from the men of Wolfsschanze. He had not the slightest doubt Althene would interfere.

  “I’m not holding back any of the essentials,” he said.

  “I didn’t say you were. I said you were elliptical. You refer to a man in Geneva you won’t identify; you speak of conditions you only half describe, the oldest children of two families you won’t name. You’re leaving out a great deal.”

  “For your own good.”

  “That’s condescending and, considering this letter, very insulting.”

  “I didn’t mean to be either.” Holcroft leaned forward. “No one wants that bank account even remotely connected with you. You’ve read that letter; you know what’s involved. Thousands and thousands of people, hundreds of millions of dollars. There’s no way to tell who might hold you responsible. You were the wife who told him the truth; you left him because he refused to accept it. When he finally realized that what you said was true, he did what he did. There may be men still alive who would kill you for that. I won’t let you be put in that position.”

  “I see.” Althene drew out the phrase, then repeated it as she rose from her chair and walked slowly across the room to the bay window. “Are you sure that’s the concern the men in Geneva expressed?”

  “They—he—implied it, yes.”

  “I suspect it was not the only concern.”

  “No.”

  “Shall I speculate on another?”

  Noel stiffened. It was not that he underestimated his mother’s perceptions—he rarely did that—but, as always, he was annoyed when she verbalized them before he had the chance to state them himself.

  “I think it’s obvious,” he said.

  “Do you?” Althene turned from the window and looked at him.

  “It’s in the letter. If the sources of that account were made public, there’d be legal problems. Claims would be made against it in the international courts.”

  “Yes.” His mother looked away. “It’s obvious, then. I’m amazed you were allowed to tell me anything.”

  Noel leaned back in the chair apprehensively, disturbed at Althene’s words. “Why? Would you really do something?”

  “It’s a temptation,” she answered, still gazing outside. “I don’t think one ever loses the desire to strike back, to lash out at someone or something that’s caused great pain. Even if that hurt changed your life for the better. God knows mine—ours—was changed. From a hell to a level of happiness I’d given up looking for.”

  “Dad?” asked Noel.

  Althene turned. “Yes. He risked more than you’ll ever know protecting us. I’d been the fool of the world and he accepted the fool—and the fool’s child. He gave us more than love; he gave us our lives again. He asked only love in return.”

  “You’ve given him that.”

  “I’ll give it till I die. Richard Holcroft is the man I once thought Clausen was. I was so wrong, so terribly wrong.… The fact that Heinrich has been dead these many years doesn’t seem to matter; the loathing won’t go away. I do want to strike back.”

  Noel kept his voice calm. He had to lead his mother away from her thoughts; the survivors of Wolfsschanze would not let her live. “You’d be striking back at the man you remember, not the man who wrote that letter. Maybe what you saw in him at first was really there. At the end, it came back to him.”

  “That would be comforting, wouldn’t it?”

  “I think it’s true. The man who wrote that letter wasn’t lying. He was in pain.”

  “He deserved pain, he caused so much; he was the most ruthless man I ever met. But on the surface, so different, so filled with purpose. And—oh, God—what that purpose turned out to be!”

  “He changed, mother,” interrupted Holcroft. “You were a part of that change. At the end of his life he wanted only to help undo what he’d done. He says it: ‘Amends must be made.’ Think what he did—what the three of them did—to bring that about.”

  “I can’t dismiss it; I know that. Any more than I can dismiss the words. I can almost hear him say them, but it’s a very young man talking. A young man filled with purpose, a very young, wild girl at his side.” Althene paused, then spoke again, clearly. “Why did you show me the letter? Why did you bring it all back?”


  “Because I’ve decided to go ahead. That means closing the office, traveling around a lot, eventually working out of Switzerland for a number of months. As the man in Geneva said, you wouldn’t have accepted all that without asking a lot of questions. He was afraid you’d learn something damaging and do something rash.”

  “At your expense?” asked Althene.

  “I guess so. He thought it was a possibility. He said those memories of yours were strong. ‘Indelibly printed’ were his words.”

  “Indelibly,” agreed Althene.

  “His point was that there were no legal solutions; that it was better to use the money the way it was intended to be used. To make those amends.”

But it was words, not music, that he heard. The rat-tat-tatting beneath an announcer’s voice indicated one of those “all-news” stations. The dial had been changed. He should have known. Nothing is as it was for you.…

Something being said on the radio caught his attention. He turned quickly in the chair, part of his drink spilling onto his trousers.

“… police have cordoned off the hotel’s entrances. Our reporter, Richard Dunlop, is on the scene, calling in from our mobile unit. Come in, Richard. What have you learned?”

There was a burst of static followed by the voice of an excited newscaster.

“The man’s name was Peter Baldwin, John. He was an Englishman. Arrived yesterday, or at least that’s when he registered at the St. Regis; the police are contacting the airlines for further information. As far as can be determined, he was over here on vacation. There was no listing of a company on the hotel registry card.”

“When did they discover the body?”

“About a half hour ago. A maintenance man went up to the room to check the telephone and found Mr. Baldwin sprawled out on the bed. The rumors here are wild and you don’t know what to believe, but the thing that’s stressed is the method of killing. Apparently, it was vicious, brutal. Baldwin was garroted, they said. A wire pulled through his throat. An hysterical maid from the fourth floor was heard screaming to the police that the room vas drenched with—”

“Was robbery the motive?” interrupted the anchorman, in the interests of taste.

“We haven’t been able to establish that. The police aren’t talking. I gather they’re waiting for someone from the British consulate to arrive.”

“Thank you, Richard Dunlop. We’ll stay in touch.… That was Richard Dunlop at the St. Regis Hotel, on Fifty-fifth Street in Manhattan. To repeat, a brutal murder took place at one of New York’s most fashionable hotels this morning. An Englishman named Peter Baldwin …”

Holcroft shot out of the chair, lurched at the radio, and turned it off. He stood above it, breathing rapidly. He did not want to admit to himself that he had heard what he had just heard. It was not anything he had really considered; it simply was not possible.

But it was possible. It was real; it had happened. It was death. The maniacs from thirty years ago were not caricatures, not figures from some melodrama. They were vicious killers. And they were deadly serious.


Peter Baldwin, Esq., had told him to cancel Geneva. Baldwin had interfered with the dream, with the covenant. And now he was dead, brutally killed with a wire through his throat.

With difficulty, Noel walked back to the chair and sat down. He raised his glass to his lips and drank several long swallows of whiskey; the scotch did nothing for him. The pounding in his chest only accelerated.

A flare of a match! Across the courtyard, in the window! There she was! Silhouetted beyond the sheer curtains in a wash of dim light stood the blond-haired woman. She was staring across the way, staring at him! He got out of the chair, drawn hypnotically to the window, his face inches from the panes of glass. The woman nodded her head; she was slowly nodding her head! She was telling him something. She was telling him that what he perceived was the truth!

… The blond woman you’re talking about was Mrs. Palatyne, She died a month ago.

A dead woman stood silhouetted in a window across the darkness and was sending him a terrible message. Oh, Christ, he was going insane!

The telephone rang; the bell terrified him. He held his breath and lunged at the phone; he could not let it ring again. It did awful things to the silence.

“Mr. Holcroft, this is the overseas operator. I have your call to Zurich.…”

Noel listened in disbelief at the somber, accented voice from Switzerland. The man on the line was the manager of the Zurich branch of La Grande Banque de Genève. A directeur, he said twice, emphasizing his position.

“We mourn profoundly, Mr. Holcroft. We knew Herr Manfredi was not well, but we had no idea his illness had progressed so.”

“What are you talking about? What happened?”

“A terminal disease affects individuals differently. Our colleague was a vital man, an energetic man, and when such men cannot function in their normal fashions, it often leads to despondency and great depression.”

“What happened?”

“It was suicide, Mr. Holcroft. Herr Manfredi could not tolerate his incapacities.”

“Suicide?”

“There’s no point in speaking other than the truth. Ernst threw himself out of his hotel window. It was mercifully quick. At ten o’clock, La Grande Banque will suspend all business for one minute of mourning and reflection.”


“Oh, my God.…”

“However,” concluded the voice in Zurich, “all of Herr Manfredi’s accounts to which he gave his personal attention will be assumed by equally capable hands. We fully expect—”

Noel hung up the phone, cutting off the man’s words. Accounts … will be assumed by equally capable hands. Business as usual; a man was killed, but the affairs of Swiss finance were not to be interrupted. And he was killed.

Ernst Manfredi did not throw himself out of a hotel in Zurich. He was thrown out. Murdered by the men of Wolfsschanze.

For God’s sake, why? Then Holcroft remembered. Manfredi had dismissed the men of Wolfsschanze. He had told Noel the macabre threats were meaningless, the anguish of sick old men seeking atonement.

That had been Manfredi’s error. He had undoubtedly told his associates, the other directors of La Grande Banque, about the strange letter that had been delivered with the wax seals unbroken. Perhaps, in their presence, he had laughed at the men of Wolfsschanze.

The match! The flare of light! Across the courtyard the woman in the window nodded! Again—as if reading his thoughts—she was confirming the truth. A dead woman was telling him he was right!

She turned and walked away; all light went out in the window.

“Come back! Come back!” Holcroft screamed, his hands on the panes of glass. “Who are you?”

The telephone beneath him buzzed. Noel stared at it, as if it were a terrible thing in an unfamiliar place; it was both. Trembling, he picked it up.

“Mr. Holcroft, it’s Jack. I think I may know what the hell happened up at your place. I mean, I didn’t think about it before, but it kinda hit me a few minutes ago.”

“What was it?”

“A couple of nights ago these two guys came in. Locksmiths. Mr. Silverstein, on your floor, was having his lock changed. Louie told me about it, so I knew it was okay. Then I began to think. Why did they come at night? I mean, what with overtime and everything, why didn’t they come in the daytime? So I just called Louie at home. He said they came yesterday. So who the hell were those other guys.”


“Do you remember anything about them?”

“You’re damned right I do! One of them in particular. You could pick him out in a crowd at the Garden! He had—”

There was a loud, sharp report over the line.

A gunshot!

It was followed by a crash. The telephone in the lobby had been dropped!

Noel slammed down the receiver and ran to the door, yanking it open with such force that it crashed into a framed sketch on the wall, smashing the glass. There was no time to consider the elevator. He raced down the stairs, his mind a blank, afraid to think, concentrating only on speed and balance, hoping to God he would not trip on the steps. He reached the landing and bolted through the lobby door.

He stared in shock. The worst had happened. Jack the doorman was arched back over the chair, blood pouring out of his neck. He had been shot in the throat.

He had interfered. He had been about to identify one of the men of Wolfsschanze and he had been killed for it.

Baldwin, Manfredi … an innocent doorman. Dead.

… all those who interfere will be stopped.… Any who stand in your way, who try to dissuade you, who try to deceive you … will be eliminated.

… As you and yours will be should you h
esitate. Or fail.

Manfredi had asked him if he really had a choice. He did not any longer.

He was surrounded by death.

Baldwin? Where the hell are you?”

  There was a click; the line went dead.

  “Baldwin!”

  The woman in the window slowly lowered the telephone, paused for a moment, and walked away, out of sight.

  Holcroft stared at the window, then at the telephone in his hand. He waited until he got the active line, then redialed the St. Regis.

  “I’m sorry, sir, room four-eleven’s telephone seems to be out of order. We’ll send someone up right away. May I have your number and we’ll give it to Mr. Baldwin.”

  … your phone was out of order.…

  Something was happening that Noel did not understand. He knew only that he would not leave his name or number with the operator at the St. Regis. He hung up and looked again at the window across the courtyard Whatever light there had been was gone. The window was dark; he could see only the white of the curtain.

  He pushed himself away from the windowsill and wandered aimlessly about the room, around familiar possessions in unfamiliar locations. He was not sure what to do; he supposed he should see if anything was missing. Nothing seemed to be, but it was difficult to tell.

  The telephone buzzed: the intercom from the lobby switchboard. He answered it.

  “It’s Jack, Mr. Holcroft. I just spoke to Ed and Louie. Neither of ’em know anythin 
g about anyone going up to your place. They’re honest guys. They wouldn’t screw around. None of us would.”

  “Thanks, Jack. I believe you.”

  “You want me to call the police?”

  “No.” Noel tried to sound casual. “I have an idea someone at the office was playing a joke. A couple of the fellows have keys.”

  “I didn’t see anybody. Neither did Ed or—”

  “It’s okay, Jack,” interrupted Holcroft. “Forget it. The night I left we had a party. One or two stayed over.” It was all Noel could think of to say.

  Suddenly it occurred to him that he had not looked in his bedroom. He went there now, his hand reaching for the light switch on the wall.

  He expected it, but it was still a shock. The disorientation was now somehow complete.

  Again, each piece of furniture had been moved to a different position. The bed was the first thing that struck his eye; it was oddly frightening. No part of it touched the wall. Instead, it was in the center of the room, isolated. His bureau stood in front of a window; a small writing desk was dwarfed against the expanse of the right wall. As had happened minutes ago, when first he’d seen the living room, the images of what his bedroom looked like three days ago kept flashing before him, replaced by the strangeness of what he now observed.

  Then he saw it and gasped. Hanging down from the ceiling, strapped together with dull black tape, was his second telephone, the extension cord snaking up the wall and across the ceiling to the hook that held it.

  It was spinning slowly.

  The pain shifted from his stomach to his chest; his eyes were transfixed on the sight, on the suspended instrument revolving slowly in midair. He was afraid to look beyond, but he knew he had to; he had to understand.

  And when he did, his breath came back to him. The phone was in the direct path of his bathroom door and the door was open. He saw the curtains billowing in the window above the basin. The steady stream of cold wind was making the telephone spin.

  He walked quickly into the bathroom to shut the window. As he was about to pull the curtains, he saw a brief flash of illumination outside; a match had been struck in another window across the courtyard, the flare startling in the darkness. He looked out.

  There was the woman again! The blond-haired woman, her upper body silhouetted beyond another set of sheer curtains. He stared at the figure, mesmerized by it.

  She turned as she had turned before, and walked away as she had walked away minutes ago. Out of sight. And the dim light in the window went out.

  What was happening? What did it mean? Things were being orchestrated to frighten him. But by whom and for what purpose? And what had happened to Peter Baldwin, Esq., he of the intense voice and the command to cancel Geneva? Was Baldwin a part of the terror, or was he a victim of it?

  Victim … victim? It was an odd word to use, he thought. Why should there be any victims? And what did Baldwin mean when he said he had “spent twenty years with MI Six”?

  MI Six? A branch of British intelligence. If he remembered correctly, MI Five was the section that dealt with domestic matters; Six concerned itself with problems outside the country. The English CIA, as it were.

  Good God! Did the British know about the Geneva document? Was British intelligence aware of the massive theft of thirty years ago? On the surface, it would appear so.… Yet that was not what Peter Baldwin had implied.

  You have no idea what you’re doing. No one does but me.

  And then there was silence, and the line went dead.

  Holcroft walked out of the bathroom and paused beneath the suspended telephone; it was barely moving now, but it had not stopped. It was an ugly sight, made macabre by the profusion of dull black tape that held the instrument together. As if the phone had been mummified, never to be used again.

  He continued toward the bedroom door, then instinctively stopped and turned. Something had caught his eye, something he had not noticed before. The center drawer of the small writing desk was open. He looked closer. Inside the drawer was a sheet of paper.

  His breathing stopped as he stared at the page below.

  It couldn’t be. It was insane. The single sheet of paper was brownish yellow. With age. It was identical to the page that had been kept in a vault in Geneva for thirty years. The letter filled with threats written by fanatics who revered a martyr named Heinrich Clausen. The writing was the same; the odd Germanic printing of English words, the ink that was faded but still legible.

  And what was legible was astonishing. For it had been written more than thirty years ago.

  NOEL CLAUSEN-HOLCROFT NOTHING IS AS IT WAS FOR YOU. NOTHING CAN EVER BE THE SAME.…

  Before he read further, Noel picked up an edge of the page. It crumbled under his touch.

  Oh, God! It was written thirty years ago!

  And that fact made the remainder of the message frightening.

  THE PAST WAS PREPARATION, THE FUTURE IS COMMITTED TO THE MEMORY OF A MAN AND HIS DREAM. HIS WAS AN ACT OF DARING AND BRILLIANCE IN A WORLD GONE MAD. NOTHING MUST STAND IN THE WAY OF THAT DREAM’S FULFILLMENT.

  WE ARE THE SURVIVORS OF WOLFSSCHANZE. THOSE OF US WHO LIVE WILL DEDICATE OUR LIVES AND BODIES TO THE PROTECTION OF THAT MAN’S DREAM. IT WILL BE FULFILLED, FOR IT IS ALL THAT IS LEFT. AN ACT OF MERCY THAT WELL SHOW THE WORLD THAT WE WERE BETRAYED, THAT WE WERE NOT AS THE WORLD BELIEVED US TO BE.

  WE, THE MEN OF WOLFSSCHANZE, KNOW WHAT THE BEST OF US WERE. AS HEINRICH CLAUSEN KNEW.

  IT IS NOW UP TO YOU, NOEL CLAUSEN-HOLCROFT, TO COMPLETE WHAT YOUR FATHER BEGAN. YOU ARE THE WAY. YOUR FATHER WISHED IT SO.

  MANY WILL TRY TO STOP YOU. TO THROW OPEN THE FLOODGATES AND DESTROY THE DREAM. BUT THE MEN OF WOLFSSCHANZE DO SURVIVE. YOU HAVE OUR WORD THAT ALL THOSE WHO INTERFERE WILL BE STOPPED THEMSELVES.

  ANY WHO STAND IN YOUR WAY, WHO TRY TO DISSUADE YOU, WHO TRY TO DECEIVE YOU WTTH LIES, WILL BE ELIMINATED.

  AS YOU AND YOURS WILL BE SHOULD YOU HESITATE. OR FAIL.

  THIS IS OUR OATH TO YOU.

  Noel grabbed the paper out of the drawer; it fell apart in his hand. He let the fragments fall to the floor.

  “Goddamned maniacs!” He slammed the drawer shut and ran out of the bedroom. Where was the telephone? Where the hell was the goddamned telephone? By the window—that was it; it was on the kitchen table by the fucking window!

  “Maniacs!” he screamed again at no one. But not really at no one: at a man in Geneva who had been on a train bound for Zurich. Maniacs might have written that page of garbage thirty years ago, but now, thirty years later, other maniacs had delivered it! They had broken into his home, invaded his privacy, touched his belongings.… God knows what else, he thought, thinking of Peter Baldwin, Esq. A man who had traveled thousands of miles to see him, and talk with him … silence, a click, a dead telephone line.

  He looked at his watch. It was almost one o’clock in the morning. What was it in Zurich? Six? Seven? The banks in Switzerland opened at eight. La Grande Banque de Genève had a branch in Zurich; Manfredi would be there.

  The window. He was standing in front of the window where he had stood only minutes ago, waiting for Baldwin to come back on the phone. The window. Across the courtyard in the opposite apartment. The three brief flares of a match … the blond-haired woman in the window!

  Holcroft put his hand in his pocket to make sure he had his keys. He did. He ran to the door, let himself out, raced for the elevator, and pushed the button. The indicator showed that the car was on the tenth floor; the arrow did not move.

  God damn it!

  He ran to the staircase and started down, taking the steps two at a time. He reached the ground floor and dashed out into the lobby.

  “Jesus, Mr. Holcroft!” Jack stared at him. “You scared the shit out of me!”

  “Do you know the doorman in the next building?” shouted Noel.

  “Which one?”

  “Christ! That one!” Holcroft gestured to the right.

  “That’s three-eighty. Yeah, sure.”

/>   “Come on with me!”

  “Hey, wait a minute, Mr. Holcroft. I can’t leave here.”

  “We’ll only be a minute. There’s twenty dollars in it for you.”

  “Only a minute.…”

  The doorman at three-eighty greeted them, understanding quickly that he was to give accurate information to Jack’s friend.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but there’s no one in that apartment. Hasn’t been for almost three weeks. But I’m afraid it’s been rented; the new tenants will be coming in.…”

  “There is someone there!” said Noel, trying to control himself. “A blond-haired woman. I’ve got to find out who she is.”

  “A blond-haired woman? Kind of medium height, sort of good-looking, smokes a lot?”

  “Yes, that’s the one! Who is she?”

  “You live in your place long, mister?”

  “What?”

  “I mean, have you been there a long time?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “I think maybe you’ve been drinking.…”

  “What the hell are you talking about?! Who is that woman?”

  “Not is, mister. Was. The blond woman you’re talking about was Mrs. Palatyne. She died a month ago.”

  Noel sat in the chair in front of the window, staring across the courtyard. Someone was trying to drive him crazy. But why? It did not make sense! Fanatics, maniacs from thirty years ago, had sprung across three decades, commanding younger, unknown troops thirty years later. Again, why?

  He had called the St. Regis. Room four-eleven’s telephone was working, but it was continuously busy. And a woman he had seen clearly did not exist. But she did exist! And she was a part of it; he knew it.

  He got out of the chair, walked to the strangely placed bar, and poured himself a drink. He looked at his watch; it was one-fifty. He had ten minutes to wait before the overseas operator would call him back; the bank could be reached at two A.M., New York time. He carried his glass back to the chair in front of the window. On the way, he passed his FM radio. It was not where it usually was of course; that was why he noticed it. Absently, he turned it on. He liked music; it soothed him.

4

Holcroft got out of the taxi in front of his apartment on East Seventy-third Street. He was exhausted, the strain of the last three days heightened by the tragedy on board the flight. He was sorry for the poor bastard who’d had the heart attack, but furious at the Port Authority police who treated the incident as if it were an international crisis. Good Lord! Quarantined for damned near four hours! And all passengers in first class were to keep the police informed of their whereabouts for the next sixty days.

The doorman greeted him. “A short trip this time, Mr. Holcroft. But you got a lot of mail. Oh, and a message.”


“A message?”

“Yes, sir,” said the doorman, handing him a business card. “This gentleman came in asking for you last night. He was very agitated, you know what I mean?”

“Not exactly.” Noel took the card and read the name: PETER BALDWIN, ESQ.; it meant nothing to him. WELLINGTON SECURITY SYSTEMS, LTD. THE STRAND, LONDON, W1A. There was a telephone number underneath. Holcroft had never heard of the British company. He turned the card over; on the back was scribbled ST. REGIS HOTEL. RM. 411.

“He insisted that I ring your apartment in case you’d gotten back and I didn’t see you come in. I told him that was crazy.”

“He could have telephoned me himself,” said Noel, walking toward the elevator. “I’m in the book.”

“He told me he tried, but your phone was out of order.” The elevator door closed on the man’s last words. Holcroft read the name again as the elevator climbed to the fifth floor. Peter Baldwin, Esq. Who was he? And since when was his phone out of order?

He opened his apartment door and reached for the light switch on the wall. Two table lamps went on simultaneously; Noel dropped his suitcase and stared in disbelief at the room.

Nothing was the same as it was three days ago! Nothing. Every piece of furniture, every chair, every table, every vase and ashtray, was moved into another position. His couch had been in the center of the room; it was now in the far-right corner. Each sketch and painting on the walls had been shifted around, none where it had been before! The stereo was no longer on the shelf; instead it was neatly arranged on a table. His bar, always at the rear of the living room, was now at the left of the door. His drafting board, usually by the window, was now by itself ten feet in front of him, the stool somewhere else—God knew where. It was the strangest sensation he had ever had. Everything familiar, yet not familiar at all. Reality distorted, out of focus.

He stood in the open doorway. Images of the room as it had been kept reappearing in front of his eyes, only to be replaced by what was in front of him now.

“What happened?” He heard his own words, unsure they were his at first.

He ran to the couch; the telephone was always by the couch, on a table at its right arm. But the couch had been moved, and the telephone had not been moved with it. He spun around toward the center of the room. Where was the table? It was not there; an armchair was where the table should be. The telephone was not there, either! Where was the telephone? Where was the table? Where the hell was the telephone?


It was by the window. There was his kitchen table by the living-room window, and the telephone was on top of it. The large center window that looked out at the apartment building across the wide courtyard below. The telephone wires had been taken out from under the wall-to-wall carpeting and moved to the window. It was crazy! Who would take the trouble to lift tacked-down carpeting and move telephone wires?

He raced to the table, picked up the phone, and pressed the intercom button that connected him to the switchboard in the lobby. He stabbed the signal button repeatedly; there was no answer. He kept his finger on it; finally, the harried voice of Jack the doorman answered.

“All right, all right. This is the lobby.…”

“Jack, it’s Mr. Holcroft. Who came up to my apartment while I was away?”

“Who came what, sir?”

“Up to my apartment!”

“Were you robbed, Mr. Holcroft?”

“I don’t know yet. I just know that everything’s been moved around. Who was here?”

“Nobody. I mean, nobody I know of. And the other guys didn’t say anything. I’m relieved at four in the morning by Ed, and he’s off at noon. Louie takes over then.”

“Can you call them?”

“Hell, I can call the police!”

The word was jarring. “Police” meant questions—Where had he been? Whom had he seen?—and Noel was not sure he wanted to give any answers.

“No, don’t call the police. Not yet. Not until I see if anything’s missing. It might be someone’s idea of a joke. I’ll call you back.”

“I’ll call the other guys.”

Holcroft hung up. He sat on the wide windowsill and appraised the room. Everything. Not a single piece of furniture was where it had been before!

He was holding something in his left hand: the business card. PETER BALDWIN, ESQ.

“… he was very agitated, you know what I mean?… he insisted I ring your apartment … your phone was out of order.…”

ST. REGIS HOTEL. RM. 411.

Noel picked up the phone and dialed. He knew the number well; he lunched frequently at the King Cole Grill.

“Yes? Baldwin here.” The voice was British, the greeting abrupt.


“This is Noel Holcroft, Mr. Baldwin. You tried to reach me.”

“Thank heavens! Where are you?”

“Home. In my apartment. I just got back.”

“Back? From where?”

“I’m not sure that’s any of your business.”

“For God’s sake, I’ve traveled over three thousand miles to see you! It’s dreadfully important. Now where were you?”

The Englishman’s breathing was audible over the phone; the man’s intensity seemed somehow related to fear. “I’m flattered you came all that distance to see me, but it still doesn’t give you the right to ask personal questions.…”

“I have every right!” broke in Baldwin. “I spent twenty years With MI Six, and we have a great deal to talk about! You have no idea what you’re doing. No one does but me.”

“You what? We what?”

“Let me put it this way. Cancel Geneva. Cancel it, Mr. Holcroft, until we’ve talked!”

“Geneva?…” Noel felt suddenly sick to his stomach. How would this Englishman know about Geneva? How could he know?

A light flickered outside the window; someone in an apartment directly across the courtyard was lighting a cigarette. Despite his agitation, Holcroft’s eyes were drawn to it.

“There’s someone at the door,” Baldwin said. “Stay on the phone. I’ll get rid of whoever it is and be right back.”

Noel could hear Baldwin put the telephone down, then the sound of a door opening and indistinguishable voices. Across the courtyard, in the window, a match was struck again, illuminating the long blond hair of a woman behind a sheer curtain.

Holcroft realized there was silence on the line; he could hear no voices now. Moments went by; the Englishman did not return.

“Baldwin? Baldwin, where are you? Baldwin!”

For a third time a match flared in the window across the way. Noel stared at it; it seemed unnecessary. He could see the glow of a cigarette in the blond woman’s mouth. And then he saw what was in her other hand, silhouetted behind the sheer curtain: a telephone. She was holding a telephone to her ear and looking over at his window—looking, he was sure, at him.

The telephone rang. The customs inspector answered it; listened briefly, and handed it to the Port Authority detective. “It’s the State Department. For you.”

“State? This is Lieutenant Miles, NYPA police. Have you got the information I requested?”

“We’ve got it, but you won’t like it.…”

“Wait a minute,” Miles broke in. The door had opened and the uniformed officer had reappeared. “What have you got?” Miles asked the officer.

“The seat cushions and the carpet on the left side of the lounge are soaked.”

“Then they were cold sober,” said the detective, in a monotone. He nodded and returned to the telephone. “Go ahead, State. What won’t I like?”

“Those passports in question were declared void more than four years ago. They belonged to two men from Flint, Michigan. Neighbors, actually; worked for the same company in Detroit. In June of 1973 they both went on a business trip to Europe and never came back.”

“Why were the passports voided?”

“They disappeared from their hotel rooms. Three days later their bodies were found in the river. They’d been shot.”

“Jesus! What river? Where?”

“The Isar. They were in Munich, Germany.”

One by one the irate passengers of Flight 591 passed through the door of the quarantined room. Their names, addresses, and telephone numbers were checked off against the 747’s manifest by a representative of British Airways. Next to the representative was a member of the Port Authority police, making his own marks on a duplicate list. The quarantine had lasted nearly four hours.

Outside the room the passengers were directed down a hallway into a large cargo area, where they retrieved their inspected luggage, and headed for the doors of the main terminal. One passenger, however, made no move to leave the cargo area. Instead, this man, who carried no luggage, but had a raincoat over his arm, walked directly to a door with thick, stenciled printing on the panel.


U. S. CUSTOMS. CONTROL CENTER

AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

Showing identification, he stepped inside.

A gray-haired man in the uniform of a high-ranking customs official stood by a steel-framed window, smoking a cigarette. At the intrusion, he turned. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said. “There was nothing I could do while you were quarantined.”

“I had the ID card ready in case you weren’t here,” replied the passenger, putting the identification back into his jacket pocket.

“Keep it ready. You may still need it; the police are all over the place. What do you want to do?”

“Get out to that aircraft.”

“You think they’re there?”

“Yes. Somewhere. It’s the only explanation.”

The two men left the room and walked rapidly across the cargo area, past the numerous conveyor belts, to a steel doorway marked NO ADMITTANCE. Using a key, the customs official opened it and preceded the younger man with the raincoat through the door. They were inside a long cinderblock tunnel that led to the field. Forty seconds later they readied another steel door, this one guarded by two men, one from U.S. Customs, the other from the Port Authority police. The gray-haired official was recognized by the former.

“Hello, Captain. Hell of a night, isn’t it?”

“It’s only begun, I’m afraid,” said the official. “We may be involved, after all.” He looked at the policeman. “This man’s federal,” he continued, angling his head at his companion. “I’m taking him to the five-ninety-one aircraft. There may be a narcotics connection.”

The police officer seemed confused. Apparently his orders were to allow no one through the door. The customs guard interceded.

“Hey, come on. This man runs all of Kennedy Airport.”

The policeman shrugged and opened the door.

Outside a steady rain fell from the black night sky as pockets of mist rolled in from Jamaica Bay. The man with the customs official put on his raincoat. His movements were swift; in the hand beneath the coat held over his arm had been a gun. It was now in his belt, the buttons at his waist unfastened.


The 747 glistened under floodlights, rain streaking down its fuselage. Police and maintenance crews were everywhere, distinguished from one another by the contrasting blade and orange of their slickers.

“I’ll build your cover with the police inside,” said the customs official, gesturing at the metal steps that swept up from the back of the truck to a door in the fuselage. “Good hunting.”

The man in the raincoat nodded, not really listening. His eyes were scanning the area. The 747 was the focal point; thirty yards from it in all directions were stanchions connected by ropes, policemen at midpoints between them. The man in the raincoat was within this enclosure; he could move about freely. He turned right at the end of the parallel ropes and proceeded toward the rear of the aircraft. He nodded to the police officers at their posts, slapping his identification open casually to those whose looks were questioning. He kept peering through the rain into the faces of those entering and leaving the plane. Three quarters around the plane, he heard the angry shout of a maintenance crewman.

“What the Bleep are you doing? Get that winch secure!”

The target of the outburst was another crewman, standing on the platform of a fuel truck. This crewman had no rain slicker on; his white coverall was drenched. In the driver’s seat of the truck sat another crewman, also without rain apparel.

That was it, thought the man in the raincoat. The killers had worn coveralls beneath their suits. But they had not taken into consideration the possibility of rain. Except for that mistake, the escape had been planned brilliantly.

The man walked over to the fuel truck, his hand on the gun concealed beneath his raincoat. Through the rain he stared at the figure beyond the truck window, in the driver’s seat; the second man was above him, to his right on the platform, turned away. The face behind the window stared back in disbelief, and instantly lurched for the far side of the seat. But the man in the raincoat was too quick. He opened the door, pulled out his revolver and fired, the gunshot muted by a silencer. The man in the seat fell into the dashboard, blood streaming out of his forehead.


At the sound of the commotion below, the second man spun around on the steel platform of the truck and looked below.

“You! In the lounge! With the newspaper!”

“Get inside the truck,” commanded the man in the raincoat, his words clear through the pounding rain, his gun concealed behind the door panel.

The figure on the platform hesitated. The man with the gun looked around. The surrounding police were preoc
cupied with their discomfort in the downpour, half blinded by the floodlights. None was observing the deadly scene. The man in the raincoat reached up, grabbed the white cloth of the surviving killer’s coverall, and yanked him into the frame of the open door of the fuel truck.

“You failed. Heinrich Clausen’s son still lives,” he said calmly. Then he fired a second shot. The killer fell back into the seat.

The man in the raincoat closed the door and put his gun back into his belt. He walked casually away, directly underneath the fuselage toward the roped-off alleyway that led to the tunnel. He could see the customs official emerging from the 747’s door, walking rapidly down the steps. They met and together headed for the door of the tunnel.

“What happened?” asked the official.

“My hunting was good. Theirs wasn’t. The question is, what do we do about Holcroft?”

“That’s not our concern. It’s the Tinamou’s. The Tinamou must be informed.”

The man in the raincoat smiled to himself, knowing his smile could not be seen in the downpour.

“You said two children. Who are they?”

  “Actually, there are three children. The youngest, a daughter, Helden, was born after the war, in Brazil, obviously conceived during the last days of the Reich. The oldest is another daughter, Gretchen. The middle child is Johann, the son.”

  “You say they disappeared?”

  “Perhaps it’s too dramatic a term. We’re bankers, not investigators. Our inquiries were not that extensive, and Brazil is a very large country. Your inquiries must be exhaustive. The offspring of each man must be found and scrutinized. It’s the first condition of the document; without compliance, the account will not be released.”

  Holcroft folded the document and put it back in his attaché case. As he did so, his fingers touched the edge of the single sheet of paper with the odd block lettering written by the survivors of Wolfsschanze thirty years ago. Manfredi was right: They were sick old men trying to play their last desperate roles in a drama of the future they barely understood. If they had understood, they would have appealed to the “son of Heinrich Clausen.” Pleaded with him, not threatened him. The threat was the enigma. Why was it made? For what purpose? Again, perhaps, Manfredi was right. The strange paper bad no meaning now. There were other things to think about.

  Holcroft caught the eye of the stewardess chatting with two men at a table across the way and gestured for another scotch. She smiled pleasantly, nodded, and indicated that the drink would be there in moments. He returned to his thoughts.

  The inevitable doubts surfaced. Was he prepared to commit what amounted to a year of his life to a project so immense that his own qualifications had to be examined before the children of Kessler and Von Tiebolt were examined—if, indeed, he could find the latter? Manfredi’s words came back to him. Do you really have a choice? The answer to that question was both yes and no. The two million, which signified his own freedom, was a temptation difficult to reject, but he could reject it. His dissatisfactions were real, but professionally, things were going well. His reputation was spreading, his skills acknowledged by a growing number of clients who in turn told potential clients. What would happen if he suddenly stopped? What would be the effect should he abruptly withdraw from a dozen commissions for which he was competing? These too were questions to be considered deeply; he was not ruled by money alone.

  Yet, as his mind wandered, Noel understood the uselessness of his thoughts. Compared to his … covenant … the questions were inconsequential. Whatever his personal circumstances, the distribution of millions to the survivors of an inhumanity unknown in history was long overdue; it was an obligation impossible to dismiss. A voice had cried out to him through the years, the voice of a man in agony who was the father he had never known. For reasons he was incapable of explaining to himself, he could not be deaf to that voice; he could not walk away from that man in agony. He would drive to Bedford Hills in the morning and see his mother.

  Holcroft looked up, wondering where the stewardess was with his drink. She was at the dimly lit counter that served as the bar in the 747’s lounge. The two men from the table had accompanied her; they were joined by a third. A fourth man sat quietly in a rear seat, reading a newspaper. The two men with the stewardess had been drinking heavily, while the third, in his search for camaraderie, pretended to be less sober than he was. The stewardess saw Noel looking at her and arched her eyebrows in mock desperation. She had poured his scotch, but one of the drunks had spilled it; she was wiping it up with a cloth. The drunks’ companion suddenly lurched back against a chair, his balance lost. The stewardess dashed around the counter to help the fallen passenger; his friend laughed, steadying himself on an adjacent chair. The third man reached for a drink on the bar. The fourth man looked up in disgust, crackling his paper, the sound conveying his disapproval. Noel returned to the window not caring to be a part of the minor confusion.

  Several minutes later the stewardess approached his table. “I’m sorry, Mr. Holcroft. Boys will be boys, more so on the Atlantic run, I think. That was scotch on the rocks, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. Thanks.” Noel took the glass from the attractive girl and saw the look in her eyes. It seemed to say, Thank you, nice person, for not coming on like those crashing bores. Under different circumstances he might have pursued a conversation, but now he had other things to think about. His mind was listing the things he would do on Monday. Closing his office was not difficult in terms of personnel; he had a small staff: a secretary and two draftsmen he could easily place with friends—probably at higher salaries. But why in heaven’s name would Holcroft, Incorporated, New York, close up shop just when its designs were being considered for projects that could triple its staff and quadruple its gross income? The explanation had to be both reasonable and above scrutiny.

  Suddenly, without warning, a passenger on the other side of the cabin sprang from his seat, a hoarse, wild cry of pain coming from his throat. He arched his back spastically, as if gasping for air, clutched first his stomach, then his chest. He crashed into the wooden divider that held magazines and airline schedules and twisted maniacally, his eyes wide, the veins in his neck purple and distended. He lurched forward and sprawled to the deck of the cabin.

  It was the third man, who had joined the two drunks at the bar with the stewardess.

  The next moments were chaotic. The stewardess rushed to the fallen man, observed him closely, and followed procedure. She instructed the three other passengers in the cabin to remain in their seats, placed a cushion beneath the man’s head, and returned to the counter and the intercom on the wall. In seconds a male flight attendant rushed up the circular staircase; the British Airways captain emerged from the flight deck. They conferred with the stewardess over the unconscious body. The male attendant walked rapidly to the staircase, descended, and returned within a few moments with a clipboard. It was obviously the plane’s manifest.

  The captain stood and addressed the others in the lounge. “Will you all please return to your seats below. There’s a doctor on board. He’s being summoned. Thank you very much.”

  As Holcroft sidestepped his way down the staircase, a stewardess carrying a blanket climbed quickly past him. Then he heard the captain issue an order over the intercom. “Radio Kennedy for emergency equipment. Medical. Male passenger, name of Thornton. Heart seizure, I believe.”

  The doctor knelt by the prone figure stretched out on the rear seat of the lounge and asked for a flashlight. The first officer hurried to the flight deck and returned with one. The doctor rolled back the eyelids of the man named Thornton, then turned and motioned for the captain to join him; he had something to say. The captain bent over; the doctor spoke quietly.

  “He’s dead. It’s difficult to say without equipment, without tissue and blood analysis, but I don’t think this man had a heart attack. I think he was poisoned. Strychnine would be my guess.”

  The customs inspector’s office was suddenly quiet. Behind the inspector’s desk sat a homicide detective from New York’s Port Authority police, a British Airways clipboard in front of him. The inspector stood rigidly embarrassed to one side. In two chairs against the wall sat the captain of the 747 and the stewardess assigned to its first-class lounge. By the door was a uniformed police officer. The detective stared at the customs inspector in disbelief.

  “Are you telling me that two people got off that plane, walked through sealed-off corridors into the sealed-off, guarded customs area, and vanished?”

  “I can’t explain it,” said the inspector, shaking his head despondently. “It’s never happened before.”

  The detective turned to the stewardess. “You’re convinced they were drunk, miss?”

  “Not now, perhaps,” replied the girl. “I’ve got to have second thoughts. They drank a great deal; I’m certain of it; they couldn’t have faked that. I served them. They appeared quite sloshed. Harmless, but sloshed.”

  “Could they have poured their drinks out somewhere? Without drinking them, I mean.”

  
“Where?” asked the stewardess.

  “I don’t know. Hollow ashtrays, the seat cushions. What’s on the floor?”

  “Carpeting,” answered the pilot.

  The detective addressed the police officer by the door. “Get forensic on your radio. Have them check the carpet, the seat cushions, ashtrays. Left side of the roped-off area facing front. Dampness is enough. Let me know.”

  “Yes, sir.” The officer left quickly, closing the door behind him.

  “Of course,” ventured the captain, “alcoholic tolerances vary.”

  “Not in the amounts the young lady described,” the detective said.

  “For God’s sake, why is it important?” said the captain. “Obviously they’re the men you want. They’ve vanished, as you put it. That took some planning, I daresay.”

  “Everything’s important,” explained the detective. “Methods can be matched with previous crimes. We’re looking for anything. Crazy people. Rich, crazy people who jet around the world looking for thrills. Signs of psychosis, getting kicks while on a high—alcohol or narcotics, it doesn’t matter. As far as we can determine, the two men in question didn’t even know this Thornton; your stewardess here said they introduced themselves. Why did they kill him? And, accepting the fact that they did, why so brutally? It was strychnine, Captain, and take my word for it, it’s a rough way to go.”

NNU0000:
No Goosebump from this chapter.

Don't worry bro, you'll be goosebumped in the latter chapters

“You must be convincing. The letter is convincing, and we’ll step in, if need be. Regardless, it’s better to know her position at the outset.”

  What would that position be? Noel wondered. Althene was not your run-of-the-mill mother, as mothers were understood by this particular son. He knew very early in life that Althene was different. She did not fit into the mold of the wealthy Manhattan matron. The trappings were there—or had been. The horses, the boats, the weekends in Aspen and in the Hamptons, but not the frantic chase for ever-expanding acceptance and social control.

  She’d done it all before. She’d lived in the turbulence that was the European thirties, a young, carefree American whose family had something left after the crash and were more comfortable away from their less-fortunate peers. She had known the Court of St. James’s as well as the expatriate salons in Paris … and the dashing new inheritors of Germany. And out of those years had come a serenity shaped by love, exhaustion, loathing, and rage.

  Althene was a special person, as much a friend as a mother, that friendship deep and without the need for constant reaffirmation. In point of fact, thought Holcroft, she was more friend than mother; she was ne 
ver entirely comfortable in the latter role.

  “I’ve made too many mistakes, my dear,” she had said to him once, laughing, “to assume an authority based on biology.”

  Now he would ask her to face the memory of a man she had spent a great deal of her life trying to forget. Would she be frightened? That wasn’t likely. Would she doubt the objectives set forth in the document given him by Ernst Manfredi? How could she, after reading the letter from Heinrich Clausen. Whatever her memories, his mother was a woman of intellect and perception. All men were subject to change, to remorse. She would have to accept that, no matter how distasteful it might be to her in this particular case.

  It was the weekend; tomorrow was Sunday. His mother and stepfather spent the weekends at their house in the country, in Bedford Hills. In the morning he would drive up and have that talk.

  And on Monday he would take the first steps on a trip that would lead him back to Switzerland. To an as yet unknown agency in Zurich. On Monday the hunt would begin.

  Noel recalled his exchange with Manfredi. They were among the last words spoken before Holcroft left the train.

  “The Kesslers had two sons. The oldest, Erich—named for the father—is a professor of history at the University of Berlin. The younger brother, Hans, is a doctor in Munich. From what we know, both are highly regarded in their respective communities. They’re very close. Once Erich is told of the situation, he may insist on his brother’s inclusion.”

  “Is that permitted?”

  “There’s nothing in the document that prohibits it. However, the stipend remains the same and each family has but one vote in all decisions.”

  “What about the Von Tiebolts?”

  “Another story, I’m afraid. They may be a problem for you. After the war the records show that the mother and two children fled to Rio de Janeiro. Five or six years ago they disappeared. Literally. The police have no information. No address, no business associations, no listings in the other major cities. And that’s unusual; the mother became quite successful for a time. No one seems to know what happened, or if people do, they’re not willing to say

3

  The huge aircraft passed over Cape Breton Island and dipped gently to the left, descending into its new altitude and heading. The route was now southwest, toward Halifax and Boston, then into New York.

  Holcroft had spent most of the time in the upstairs lounge, at a single chair in the right rear corner, his black attaché case against the bulkhead. It was easier to concentrate there; no straying eyes of an adjacent passenger could fall on the papers he read and reread, again and again.

  He had begun with the letter from Heinrich Clausen, that unknown but all-pervading presence. It was an incredible document in itself. The information contained in it was of such an alarming nature that Manfredi had expressed the collective wish of the Grande Banque’s directors that it be destroyed. For it detailed in general terms the sources of the millions banked in Geneva three decades ago. Although the majority of these sources were untouchable in any contemporary legal sense—thieves and murderers stealing the national funds of a government headed by thieves and murderers—other sources were not so immune to modern scrutiny. Throughout the war Germany had plundered. It had raped internally and externally. The dissenters within had been stripped; the conquered without, stolen from unmercifully. Should the memories of these thefts be dredged up, the international courts in The Hague could tie up the funds for years in protracted litigations.

  “Destroy the letter,” Manfredi had said in Geneva. “It’s necessary only that you understand why he did what he did. Not the methods; they are a complication without any conceivable resolution. But there are those who may try to stop you. Other thieves would move in; we’re dealing in hundreds of millions.”

  Noel reread the letter for perhaps the twentieth time. Each time he did so, he tried to picture the man who wrote it. His natural father. He had no idea what Heinrich Clausen looked like; his mother had destroyed all photographs, all communications, all references whatsoever to the man she loathed with all her being.

  Berlin, 20 April 1945

  MY SON.

  I write this as the armies of the Reich collapse on all fronts. Berlin will soon fall, a city of raging fires and death everywhere. So be it. I shall waste no moments on what was, or what might have been. On concepts betrayed, and the triumph of evil over good through the treachery of morally bankrupt leaders. Recriminations born in hell are too suspect, the authorship too easily attributed to the devil.

  Instead, I shall permit my actions to speak for me. In them, you may find some semblance of pride. That is my prayer.

  Amends must be made. That is the credo I have come to recognize. As have my two dearest friends and closest associates who are identified in the attached document. Amends for the destruction we have wrought, for betrayals so heinous the world will never forget. Or forgive. It is in the interest of partial forgiveness that we have done what we have done.

  Five years ago your mother made a decision I could not comprehend, so blind were my loyalties to the New Order. Two winters ago—in February of 1943—the words she spoke in rage, words I arrogantly dismissed as lies fed her by those who despised the Fatherland, were revealed to be the truth. We who labored in the rarefied circles of finance and policy had been deceived. For two years it was clear that Germany was going down to defeat. We pretended otherwise, but in our hearts we knew it was so. Others knew it, too. And they became careless. The horrors surfaced, the deceptions were clear.

  Twenty-five months ago I conceived of a plan and enlisted the support of my dear friends in the Finanzministerium. Their support was willingly given. Our objective was to divert extraordinary sums of money into neutral Switzerland, funds that could be used one day to give aid and succor to those thousands upon thousands whose lives were shattered by unspeakable atrocities committed in Germany’s name by animals who knew nothing of German honor.

  We know now about the camps. The names will haunt history. Belsen, Dachau, Auschwitz.

  We have been told of the mass executions, of the helpless men, women and children lined up in front of trenches dug by their own hands, then slaughtered.

  We have learned of the ovens—oh, God in heaven—ovens for human flesh! Of the showers that sprayed not cleansing water but lethal gas. Of intolerable, obscene experiments carried out on conscious human beings by insane practitioners of a medical science unknown to man. We bleed at the images, and our eyes burst, but our tears can do nothing. Our minds, however, are not so helpless. We can plan.

  Amends must be made.

  We cannot restore life. We cannot bring back what was so brutally, viciously taken. But we can seek out all those who survived, and the children of those both surviving and slaughtered, and do what we can. They must be sought out all over the world and shown that we have not forgotten. We are ashamed and we wish to help. In any way that we can. It is to this end that we have done what we have done.

  I do not for a moment believe that our actions can expiate our sins, those crimes we were unknowingly a part of. Yet we do what we can—I do what I can—haunted with every breath by your mother’s perceptions. Why, oh eternal God, did I not listen to that great and good woman?

  To return to the plan.

  Using the American dollar as the equivalent currency of exchange, our goal was ten million monthly, a figure that might appear excessive, but not when one considers the capital flow through the economic maze of the Finanzministerium at the height of the war. We exceeded our goal.

  Using the Finanzministerium, we appropriated funds from hundreds of sources within the Reich and to a great extent beyond, throughout Germany’s ever-expanding borders. Taxes were diverted, enormous expenditures made from the Ministry of Armaments for nonexistent purchases, Wehrmacht payrolls rerouted, and monies sent to occupation territories constantly intercepted, lost. Funds from expropriated estates, and from the great fortunes, factories, and individually held companies, did not find their way into the Reich’s economy but, instead, into our accounts. Sales of art objects from scores of museums throughout the conquered lands were converted to our cause. It was a master plan carried out masterfully. Whatever risks we took and terrors we faced—and they were daily occurrences—were inconsequential compared to the meaning of our credo: Amends must be made.

  Yet no plan can be termed a success unless the objective is secured permanently. A military strategy that captures a port only to lose it to an invasion from the sea a day later is no strategy at all. One must consider all possible assaults, all interferences that could negate the strategy. One must project, as thoroughly as projection allows, the changes mandated by time, and protect the objective thus far attained. In essence, one must use time to the strategy’s advantage. We have endeavored to do this through the conditions put forth in the attached document.

  Would to the Almighty that we could give aid to the victims and their survivors sooner than our projections allow, but to do so would rivet attention to the sums we have appropriated. Then all could be lost. A generation must pass for the strategy to succeed. Even then there is risk, but time will have diminished it.

  The air-raid sirens keep up their incessant wailing. Speaking of time, there is very little left now. For myself and my two associates, we wait only for confirmation that this letter has reached Zurich through an underground courier. Upon receipt of the news, we have our own pact. Our pact with death, each by his own hand.

  Answer my prayer. Help us atone. Amends must be made.

  This is our covenant, my son. My only son, whom I have never known but to whom I have brought such sorrow. Abide by it, honor it, for it is an honorable thing I ask you to do.

  Your father,

  HEINRICH CLAUSEN

  Holcroft put the letter facedown on the table and glanced out the window at the blue sky above the clouds. Far in the distance was the exhaust of another aircraft; he followed the streak of vapor until he could see the tiny silver gleam of the fuselage.

  He thought about the letter. Again. The writing was maudlin; the words were from another era, melodramatic. It did not weaken the letter; rather, it gave it a certain strength of conviction. Clausen’s sincerity was unquestioned; his emotions were genuine.

  What was only partially communicated, however, was the brilliance of the plan itself. Brilliant in its simplicity, extraordinary in its use of time and the laws of finance to achieve both execution and protection. For the three men understood that sums of the magnitude they had stolen could not be sunk in a lake or buried in vaults. The hundreds of millions had to exist in the financial marketplace, not subject to discontinued currency or to brokers who would have to convert and sell elusive assets.

  Hard money had to be deposited, the responsibility for its security given to one of the world’s most revered institutions, La Grande Banque de Genève. Such an institution would not—could not—permit abuses where liquidity was concerned; it was an international economic rock. All the conditions of its contract with its depositors would be observed. Everything was to be legal in the eyes of Swiss law. Covert—as was the custom of the trade—but ironbound with respect to existing legalities, and thus current with the times. The intent of the contract—the document—could not be corrupted; the objectives would be followed to the letter.

  To permit corruption or malfeasance was unthinkable. Thirty years … fifty years … in terms of the financial calendar was very little time, indeed.

  Noel reached down and opened his attaché case. He slipped the pages of the letter into a compartment and pulled out the document from La Grande Banque de Genève. It was encased in a leather cover, folded in the manner of a last will and testament, which it was—and then some. He leaned back in the chair and unfastened the clasp that allowed the cover to unfold, revealing the first page of the document.

  His “covenant,” Holcroft reflected.

  He skimmed over the words and the paragraphs, now so familiar to him, flipping the pages as he did so, concentrating on the salient points.

  The identities of Claus 
en’s two associates in the massive theft were Erich Kessler and Wilhelm von Tiebolt. The names were vital not so much for identifying the two men themselves as for seeking out and contacting the oldest child of each. It was the first condition of the document. Although the designated proprietor of the numbered account was one Noel C. Holcroft, American, funds were to be released only upon the signatures of all three oldest children. And then only if each child satisfied the directors of La Grande Banque that he or she accepted the conditions and objectives set forth by the original proprietors with respect to the allocation of the funds.

  However, if these offspring did not satisfy the Swiss directors or were judged to be incompetent, their brothers and sisters were to be studied and further judgments made. If all the children were considered incapable of the responsibility, the millions would wait for another generation, when further sealed instructions would be opened by executors and by issue yet unborn. The resolve was devastating: another generation.

  THE LEGITIMATE SON OF HEINRICH CLAUSEN IS NOW KNOWN AS NOEL HOLCROFT, A CHILD, LIVING WITH HIS MOTHER AND STEPFATHER IN AMERICA. AT THE SPECIFIC DATE CHOSEN BY THE DIRECTORS OF LA GRANDE BANQUE DE GENÈVE—NOT TO BE LESS THAN THIRTY YEARS, NOR MORE THAN THIRTY-FIVE—SAID LEGITIMATE SON OF HEINRICH CLAUSEN IS TO BE CONTACTED AND HIS RESPONSIBILITIES MADE KNOWN TO HIM. HE IS TO REACH HIS COINHERITORS AND ACTIVATE THE ACCOUNT UNDER THE CONDITIONS SET FORTH. HE SHALL BE THE CONDUIT THROUGH WHICH THE FUNDS ARE TO BE DISPENSED TO THE VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST, THEIR FAMILIES AND SURVIVING ISSUE.…

  The three Germans gave their reasons for the selection of Clausen’s son as the conduit. The child had entered into a family of wealth and consequence … an American family, above suspicion. All traces of his mother’s first marriage and flight from Germany had been obscured by the devoted Richard Holcroft. It was understood that in the pursuit of this obscurity a death certificate had been issued in London for an infant male named Clausen, dated February 17, 1942, and a subsequent birth certificate filed in New York City for the male child Holcroft. The additional years would further obscure events to the point of obliteration. The infant male Clausen would someday become the man Holcroft, with no visible relationship to his origins. Yet those origins could not be denied, and, therefore, he was the perfect choice, satisfying both the demands and the objectives of the document.

  An international agency was to be established in Zurich, which would serve as headquarters for the dispersal of the funds, the source of the funds to be held confidential in perpetuity. Should a spokesman be required, it was to be the American, Holcroft, for the others could never be mentioned by name. Ever. They were the children of Nazis, and their exposure would inevitably raise demands that the account be examined, that its various sources be revealed. And if the account was examined, its sources even hinted at, forgotten confiscations and appropriations would be remembered. The international courts would be swamped with litigations.

  But if the spokesman was a man without the Nazi stain, there would be no cause for alarm, no examinations, no demands for exhumation or litigation. He would act in concert with the others, each possessing one vote in all decisions, but he alone would be visible. The children of Erich Kessler and Wilhelm von Tiebolt were to remain anonymous.

  Noel wondered what the “children” of Kessler and Von Tiebolt were like. He would find out soon.

  The final conditions of the document were no less startling than anything that preceded them. All the monies were to be allocated within six months of the release of the account. Such an imposition would demand a total commitment from each of the offspring, and that was precisely what the depositors demanded: total commitment to their cause. lives would be interrupted, sacrifices required. The commitments had to be paid for. Therefore, at the end of the six-month period and the successful allocation of the funds to the victims of the Holocaust, the Zurich agency was to be disbanded and each descendant was to receive the sum of two million dollars.

  Six months. Two million dollars.

  Two million.

  Noel considered what that meant to him personally and professionally. It was freedom. Manfredi had said in Geneva that he was talented. He was talented, but frequently that talent was obscured in the final product. He’d had to accept assignments he would have preferred not to take; had to compromise designs when the architect in him dictated otherwise; had to refuse jobs he wanted very much to do, because financial pressures prohibited time spent on lesser commissions. He was turning into a cynic.

  Nothing was permanent; planned obsolescence went hand in hand with depredation and amortization. No one knew it better than an architect who once had a conscience. Perhaps he would find his conscience again. With freedom. With the two million.

  Holcroft was startled by the progression of his thoughts. He had made up his mind, something he had not intended to do until he’d thought things through. Everything. Yet he was reclaiming a misplaced conscience with money he had convinced himself he was capable of rejecting.

  What were they like, these oldest children of Erich Kessler and Wilhelm von Tiebolt? One was a woman; the other, a man, a scholar. But beyond the differences of sex and profession, they had been a part of something he had never known. They’d been there; they’d seen it. Neither had been too young to remember. Each had lived in that strange, demonic world that was the Third Reich. The American would have so many questions to ask.

  Questions to ask? Questions?

  He had made his decision. He had told Manfredi he would need time—a few days at least—before he could decide.

  “Do you really have a choice?” the Swiss banker had asked.

  “Very much so,” Noel had replied. “I’m not for sale, regardless of conditions. And I’m not frightened by threats made by maniacs thirty years ago.”

  “Nor should you be. Discuss it with your mother.”

  “What?” Holcroft was stunned. “I thought you said …”

  “Complete secrecy? Yes, but your mother is the single exception.”

  “Why? I’d think she’d be the last …”

  “She’s the first. And only. She’ll honor the confidence.”

  Manfredi had been right. If his answer was yes, he would by necessity suspend his firm’s activities and begin his travels to make contact with the offspring of Kessler and Von Tiebolt. His mother’s curiosity would be aroused; she was not a woman to let her curiosity lie dormant. She would make inquiries, and if, by any chance—however remote—she unearthed information about the millions in Geneva and Heinrich Clausen’s role in the massive theft, her reaction would be violent. Her memories of the paranoiac gangsters of the Third Reich were indelibly printed on her mind. If she made damaging disclosures public, the funds would be tied up in the international courts for years.

  “Suppose she isn’t persuaded?”
.”

* * *

  A man in a brown tweed overcoat and dark Tirolean hat stood by a pillar across from the seventh car. At first glance, there was nothing particularly distinguishing about him, except perhaps his eyebrows. They were thick, a mixture of black and light-gray hair that produced the effect of salt-and-pepper archways in the upper regions of a forgettable face.

  At first glance. Yet if one looked closer, one could see the blunted but not unrefined features of a very determined man. In spite of the pockets of wind that blew in gusts through the platform, he did not blink. His concentration on the seventh car was absolute.

  The American would come out of that doorway, thought the man by the pillar, a much different person from the American who went in. During the past few minutes his life had been changed in ways few men in this world would ever experience. Yet it was only the beginning; the journey he was about to embark on was beyond anything of which the present-day world could conceive. So it was important to observe his initial reaction. More than important. Vital.

  “Attention! Le train de sept heures …”

  The final announcement came over the speakers. Simultaneously, a train from Lausanne was arriving on the adjacent track. In moments the platform would be jammed with tourists flocking into Geneva for the weekend, the way Midlanders scrambled into Charing Cross for a brief fling in London, thought the man by the pillar.

  The train from Lausanne came to a stop. The passenger cars disgorged; the platform was again packed with bodies.

  The figure of the tall American was suddenly in the vestibule of car seven. He was blocked at the doorway by a porter carrying someone’s luggage. It was an irritating moment that might have provoked an argument under normal circumstances. But the circumstances were not normal for Holcroft. He expressed no annoyance; his face was set, unresponsive to the moment, his eyes aware of the physical confusion but not concerned with it. There was an air of detachment about him; he was in the grips of lingering astonishment. This was emphasized by the way he clutched the thick manila envelope between his arm and his chest, his hand curved around the edge, his fingers pressed into the paper with such force they formed a fist.

  It was the cause of his consternation, this document prepared a lifetime ago. It was the miracle they had waited for, lived for—the man by the pillar and those who had gone before him. More than thirty years of anticipation. And now it had surfaced at last!

  The journey had begun.

  Holcroft entered the flow of human traffic toward the ramp that led up to the gate. Although jostled by those around him, he was oblivious of the crowds, his eyes absently directed ahead. At nothing.

  Suddenly, the man by the pillar was alarmed. Years of training had taught him to look for the unexpected, the infinitesimal break in a normal pattern. He saw that break now. Two men, their faces unlike any around them, joyless, without curiosity or expectation, filled only with hostile intent.

  They were surging through the crowds, one man slightly ahead of the other. Their eyes were on the American; they were after him! The man in front had his right hand in his pocket. The man behind had his left hand concealed across his chest, beneath his unbuttoned overcoat. The hidden hands gripped weapons! The man by the pillar was convinced of that.

  He sprang away from the concrete column and crashed his way into the crowd. There were no seconds to be lost. The two men were gaining on Holcroft. They were after the envelope! It was the only possible explanation. And if that were the case, it meant that word of the miracle had leaked out of Geneva! The document inside that envelope was priceless, beyond value. Beside it, the American’s life was of such inconsequence that no thought would be expended taking that life. The men closing in on Holcroft would kill him for the envelope mindlessly, as if removing a disagreeable insect from a bar of gold. And that was mindless! What they did not know was that without the son of Heinrich Clausen the miracle would not happen!

  They were within yards of him now! The man with the black-and-white eyebrows lunged forward through the mass of tourists like a possessed animal. He crashed into people and luggage, throwing aside everything and everyone in his path. When he was within feet of the killer whose hand was concealed under his overcoat, he thrust his own hand into his pocket, clutching the gun inside, and screamed directly at the assailant:

  “Du suchst Clausens Sohn! Das Genfe Dokument!”

  The killer was partially up the ramp, separated from the American by only a few people. He heard the words roared at him by a stranger and spun around, his eyes wide in shock.

  The crowd pressed rapidly up the ramp, skirting the two obvious antagonists. Attacker and protector were in their own miniature arena, facing each other. The observer squeezed the trigger of the gun in his pocket, then squeezed it again. The spits could barely be heard as the fabric exploded. Two bullets entered the body of Holcroft’s would-be assailant, one in the lower stomach, the other far above, in the neck. The first caused the man to convulse forward; the second snapped his head back, the throat torn open.

  Blood burst from the neck with such force that it splattered surrounding faces, and the clothes and suitcases belonging to those faces. It cascaded downward, forming small pools and rivulets on the ramp. Screams of horror filled the walkway.

  The observer-protector felt a hand gripping his shoulder, digging into his flesh. He spun; the second attacker was on him, but there was no gun in his hand. Instead, the blade of a hunting knife came toward him.

  The man was an amateur, thought the observer, as his reactions—instincts born of years of training–came instantly into play. He stepped sideways quickly—a bull-fighter avoiding the horns—and clamped his left hand above his assailant’s wrist. He pulled his right hand from his pocket and gripped the fingers wrapped around the knife. He snapped the wrist downward, vising the fingers around the handle, tearing the cartilage of the attacker’s hand, forcing the blade inward. He plunged it into the soft flesh of the stomach and ripped the sharp steel diagonally up into the rib cage, severing the arteries of the heart. The man’s face contorted; a terrible scream was begun, cut off by death.

  The pandemonium had escalated into uncontrollable chaos; the screaming increased. The profusion of blood in the center of the rushing, colliding bodies fueled the hysteria. The observer-protector knew precisely what to do. He threw up his hands in frightened consternation, in sudden, total revulsion at the sight of the blood on his own clothes, and joined the hysterical crowd racing away like a herd of terrified cattle from the concrete killing ground.

  He rushed up the ramp past the American whose life he had just saved.

  Holcroft heard the screaming. It penetrated the numbing mists he felt engulfed in: clouds of vapor that swirled around him, obscuring his vision, inhibiting all thought.

  He tried to turn toward the commotion, but the hysterical crowd prevented him from doing so. He was swept farther up the ramp and pummeled into the three-foot-high cement wall that served as a railing. He gripped the stone and looked back, unable to see clearly what had happened; he did see a man below arch backward, blood erupting from his throat. He saw a second man lunging forward, his mouth stretched in agony, and then Noel could see no more, the onslaught of bodies sweeping him once again up the concrete ramp.

  A man rushed by, crashing into his shoulder. Holcroft turned in time to see frightened eyes beneath a pair of thick black-and-white brows.

  An act of violence had taken place. An attempted robbery had turned into an assault, into a killing, perhaps. Peaceful Geneva was no more immune to violence than were the wild streets of New York at night, or the impoverished alleyways of Marrakesh.

  But Noel could not dwell on such things; he could not be involved. He had other things to think about. The mists of numbness returned. Through them he vaguely understood that his life would never again be the 
same.

  He gripped the envelope in his hand and joined the screaming mass racing up the ramp to the gate.