Brandenburg (60 page)

Ghosts.

Ghosts everywhere.

An icy wind gusted, eddying the snow falling thinly in the valley below.

He had been in these mountains before, listening to the Föhn wind, knew it with certainty. Osmosis. Absorbed in his bone jelly. The memory ached there now like a soft pain.

Flakes of icy snow brushed against his cold cheeks. Chilled, invigorating.

Bone-cracking coldness.

He sucked in a deep breath, felt the chilled air probe his lungs like icy fingers.

Good.

Twice, in youth, he had been brought here, to the south, remembering faces and names before his journey began: Bormann, Mengele, Eichmann. Secret trips and safe houses and furtive meetings.
Yes, here’s the boy. Take a good look at him. Someday, not in your lifetime perhaps, but someday . . . when the time is right, when the opportunity presents itself
 . . .

The Prussian snapping of heels, the firm shaking of hands, the pledges of allegiance. Old faces and new faces that kept the flame burning.

Who would have thought it would take so long?

An icy blast blew across the balcony. He sucked in another deep breath of the chilled air.

So close, so very close.

A noise sounded and he turned toward the French windows. Meyer stepped out onto the balcony, his footsteps crunching on snow.

“The woman’s here.”

Schmeltz nodded, and both men strode back into the house.

•   •   •

Ozalid flicked on the pencil light.

1:14 a.m.

Four minutes had passed. He flicked off the light.

In the darkness, he took a quiet, deep breath. Impatience was setting in.

Do it.

He began to climb the basement steps very slowly. When he reached the top, he flicked off the Beretta’s safety, switched off the light, and slid it into his left pocket, then gripped the door handle lightly.

He opened the door a crack. The table lamp was on in the hallway, the study door closed, and he could see no light under the door where the guard would be resting.

He stepped out into the hallway.

Above him, the landing was in darkness, but he could hear the music coming softly from the bedroom. He moved up the stairs, reached the landing. The music was louder now, the bedroom door open a crack, revealing a thin splinter of light.

Ozalid took a deep breath as he raised the silenced Beretta.

He stepped toward the light.

•   •   •

In the study darkness, Ritter was asleep on the couch when his phone buzzed. He came awake with a start, exhausted after a hectic schedule with Dollman, resting his eyes but falling asleep in the process.

Now he fumbled for his phone, found it in the darkness, said sleepily, “Ritter.”

“Ritter, this is Werner Bargel. Where the devil have you been? Are you with the chancellor?”

Ritter found the lamp and switched it on, almost knocking it over as the voice crackled with urgency.

“Why? What’s up?”

“There’s no time to explain, just listen, Ritter. There’s going to be an attempt on the chancellor’s life. Stay close by him. Do you hear? Stay close! Don’t let him out of your sight. Support will be with you in minutes. But stay with Dollman!”

Ritter dropped the phone, grasped the walkie-talkie on the table, and spoke into it rapidly, not waiting for a reply from the bodyguards in the cars outside.

“Watch units . . . Alert Red! . . . Repeat, Alert Red! Watch units!” Ritter shouted into the mouthpiece, his voice strained. “Cover entrances and exits, now!”

He reached the door in one big stride, stepped out into the hallway, the SIG Sauer pistol already raised in his free hand, eyes scanning the ground floor. Music, but other sounds, too, doors opening outside in the driveway, the other bodyguards responding to his call.

As Ritter moved toward the stairs, he glimpsed the open door leading down to the basement, his every sense signaling danger. He hesitated, but only for a split second. The door hadn’t been open earlier, he was certain, and if it was open now, then someone must have . . .

No!

He could hear the men moving frantically about outside, but he ignored the sounds as he raced up the stairs. Pistol at the ready and taking three steps at a time, Ritter bounded toward the landing.

•   •   •

As Ozalid stepped into the bedroom, he saw the man sleeping in the white silk sheets, the beautiful young woman wearing the pink nightgown sitting by the dressing table.

She stared over at him silently, not making a sound, but with fear in her eyes.

There was something surreal about the scene, the music playing on, and for an instant Ozalid hesitated as he stared back at the young woman.

Their eyes met, and her gaze shifted nervously to the figure lying on the bed, as if pointing out the target.

Ozalid saw Dollman’s body half covered by the bedclothes, his white shoulders, his back and part of his torso visible, the gray chest hair and his belly rising and falling as he breathed.

Ozalid stepped forward, aimed the Beretta, and heard racing footsteps on the stairs.

Then other sounds from below the landing, wood splintering, a door crashing in . . .

Ozalid turned instantly as the bedroom door burst in and the bodyguard appeared, clutching a pistol.

The bodyguard saw the gun in Ozalid’s hand swing around, his face registering his shock and his disadvantage.

As Ritter rolled suddenly to the right, Ozalid fired two quick shots, one of them clipping Ritter’s left shoulder. The bodyguard screamed as the bullet cracked into bone. Then the Turk turned back to face his target.

He aimed as Dollman came awake with a startled look on his face, the big body rising from the covers.

Ozalid fired twice before the chancellor could speak.

The bullet struck Dollman’s left cheek just below the eye socket; then he was flung back in the bed as the second shot blasted his chest.

As Ozalid started to fire a third time, out of the corner of his eye he saw the bodyguard raise his pistol.

Before Ozalid could aim again, he heard the explosion and felt the piercing hot lead enter his right side. And then he was punched sideways by a quick series of shots, lead tearing into his flesh as the bodyguard emptied his pistol.

Ozalid reeled back, glimpsing the woman in the nightgown, hearing her screams. As he was spun around by the force of another
bullet, the gun went off in his hand. The shot tore into the woman’s throat, and she was flung back against the wall.

As the last burst of lead hammered into Ozalid’s body, he pitched forward onto the silk sheets on top of Dollman, not aware of the sounds of the men bursting into the room, or of the harsh voices screaming frantically, but dimly conscious of the hands tearing at his body, pulling him off the chancellor.

•   •   •

Forty seconds later Vice Chancellor Konrad Weber got the emergency call in his sixth-floor suite in Berlin’s Kempinski Hotel.

Despite the hour, Weber was still dressed and reading through his papers, and he sat up expectantly and placed his leather briefcase on the bed beside him.

Weber listened on the phone as Christian Bauer described the chancellor’s assassination in Wannsee and explained what he knew about the intended coup.

A stunned silence followed, until Weber said hoarsely, “Oh no . . .”

Konrad Weber, a pragmatic and precise man, was clear about his duties as vice chancellor despite the shocking news of Dollman’s assassination, and he left Christian Bauer in no doubt as to what had to be done to protect the German state. By law, Weber would assume the position of chancellor immediately and convene an emergency cabinet meeting within the next hour at the parliament building.

The threat to the cabinet’s lives was a grave and real one, and Weber agreed with Bauer’s strategy. Reichstag security officers were already contacting ministers staying at hotels throughout the city. Security at the Reichstag itself was to be stepped up in case of an attack on the building during the coming hours.

A state of emergency would be declared by Weber and those in the army and police whose loyalty was without question would be contacted at once, and the borders sealed.

Weber ordered Christian Bauer to confirm the location of the site in Bavaria but to hold off on any attempt to seize the missile until Weber and the cabinet decided on a course of action. He was quite
adamant about that, despite Bauer’s protests: Konrad Weber said he wasn’t going to risk the decimation of Germany and its people until he had all the facts concerning the coup and who the plotters were.

The next minutes and hours were of grave importance, and Bauer was to answer only to him and to no one else. Weber would assume control of the armed forces and police.

When he finally terminated the phone conversation six minutes later in his suite at the Kempinski, Konrad Weber looked over at his brown leather briefcase on the bed, certain he had everything he needed to convene the emergency cabinet meeting at the Reichstag.

56

The driver pulled in under a clump of trees on the mountain road. Switching off the engine, he doused the headlights, and five men climbed out of the cramped Opel. There was a sudden burst of activity, the car’s trunk opening, and weapons were dispensed in the snowy darkness.

One of the terrorists thrust a Kalashnikov into Volkmann’s hands. He took the weapon and checked that the safety was on, made sure the magazine was loaded. Lubsch returned his Beretta, and he slipped the automatic into his pocket.

He looked up toward the Kaalberg mountain. The weather was turning worse, the snow coming down heavily. A thick clump of pine trees faded into a mist of snowy whiteness, the visibility down to no more than ten yards. The snow was an ally, Volkmann knew. It was worth a dozen men. The driver had kept the engine revs low for the last two hundred yards to mute the noise of their approach.

Volkmann tried not to think about Erica, but focus on the climb ahead. Flakes of snow stung his face. Lubsch was giving orders to Hartig, who then disappeared into the swirl of snow, a Kalashnikov draped across his chest.

Lubsch came to join Volkmann. “The two of us will go up through the trees. Once we get close enough, I use this.” Lubsch held up a Sony transceiver. “When my men below get the order, they’ll start firing on the plateau, to try and pin down whoever’s up there. Hartig’s gone ahead to cut power to the cell phone transmitter nearby, and to try and sever the telephone and power-line junction boxes. If he can do that, Kesser’s friends will be cut off from the outside world. If we need to use the phone line, Hartig can reconnect us.”

“Why the power lines? They may have an emergency generator.”

“No doubt they will. But Hartig’s the expert, and he says to cut them. If an emergency generator kicks in, Hartig says the supply will only be connected to the lighting circuits and power sockets. But nothing heavy-duty, like electric motors, because the emergency circuit wouldn’t take a heavy load. That way, the missile will be out of operation.” Lubsch smiled. “But let’s not count on it, Volkmann.”

Lubsch took a deep breath and exhaled, the air around him fogging in the icy coldness. “We’ll have to play the cards as they fall. But we have the advantage of surprise, so let’s just pray the guards on the plateau barrier don’t hear my men coming.” He glanced up toward the trees and the blanket of white, then checked his watch and called the rest of the men together. He had them synchronize their watches. “Okay, let’s go over everything one more time. Any mistakes could be lethal.”

•   •   •

The Reichstag parliament building on the Platz der Republik was lit up like a Christmas tree.

Werner Bargel had never seen so much activity. Not since the Wall had come down and the crowds had swarmed over toward the Reichstag building from the Brandenburg Gate, two hundred yards away. That was a night to remember.

So was this.

Bargel stood on the steps outside the double glass doors at the Reichstag’s south entrance, his breath fogging in the December air as he paced the concrete nervously, the shock of Dollman’s death still on his mind.

On everybody’s mind.

The massive, imposing granite building had witnessed much history. The Reichstag fire. The storming of Berlin by the Russians. The Berlin Wall going up and coming down. And it was witnessing history in the making again right now.

It seemed as if half the cops in Berlin were swarming around the parliament building.

At least sixty green-and-white Volks and riot-squad Mercedes vans, hundreds of police dressed in full riot gear, some with leashed German shepherds, at least four helicopters hovering overhead, their noisy rotors throbbing in the darkness.

Green-uniformed cops milled around in nervous clusters, talking, worried looks on their faces; other groups raced off into the trees in the small park opposite, flashlights sweeping in the dark, dogs barking, voices calling out, walkie-talkies crackling. Everywhere, frantic activity.

Unbelievable!

The threat to the cabinet’s lives was daunting enough without having the missile threat to worry about, too.