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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: Desert Fire
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“There is a lot at stake here, let me tell you.”
Sarah was an engineer at KwU, one of the largest exporters of German high technology. “Money?”
“Perhaps more than eight billion marks. A prodigious sum. But beyond that, it is possible that Sarah was murdered by an Arab. By an Iraqi.”
A connection was made in Roemer's head, and it sickened him. A light turned on, illuminating a vast cavern filled with tens upon tens of thousands of people all looking at him. He understood, or thought he did, why he had been called this night; why they were going to allow the Kriminalpolizei to publicly continue with the case while he would be given all the help he required. But like a hound that plays with a bone even though he's not sure he wants it, Roemer refused to make the final link in his conscious mind. He knew that if he did he might not be able to control himself. Instead he focused on the other aspect of this business that bothered him.
Sarah Razmarah had been an engineer for KwU. She
was an American, but exactly why had she come to Germany? Whalpol had the answers.
“You are giving me carte blanche?”
“Within reason,” Schaller replied.
Roemer nodded to Whalpol, but addressed his remarks to the Chief Prosecutor. “What about his crowd, why don't they simply take over? National security. It's within their province.”
“For reasons that will become quite clear before we're finished this morning,” Whalpol said.
“We simply want you to listen,” Schaller said in an obvious attempt to mollify him.
“Then I have a choice?”
Schaller flinched.
“Why don't we just sit down here,” the BND major said. “Why don't we just have a little chat. Let's see if we can put our heads together and figure out what is best for Germany.”
THEY WERE AN odd, dangerous trio, Roemer thought. Schaller, the political animal. Whalpol, the agent provocateur. And Roemer, the investigator.
“I'll just start off here,” Schaller said. “And then Major Whalpol can bring up the details for you.”
“It's important that you understand everything, Investigator. Absolutely everything.”
“You don't have a charter to work within Germany, Herr Major,” Roemer said.
“That is correct,” Whalpol said.
“Has the American Consulate been informed?”
“No.”
“Why was I selected for this case?”
“Because,” Whalpol. said crisply, “I believe you are a man with his head firmly planted on his shoulders, and his feet firmly planted on German soil.”
“Is it because of my father's past that you think you can control me?” Roemer asked.
“I won't even dignify that remark with an answer.” Whalpol leaned forward. “What the hell do you think we are here, Roemer? We're more eager to find Sarah's murderer than you are. But there is much more going on here than murder.”
“We want you to find the fiend, you have to believe that. And it cannot go public,” Schaller said. “The media must never find out what has gone on.”
“Then let Lieutenant Manning find her murderer.”
“Manning may find a suspect, but he will never have the proof to make an arrest. Sarah's body will be quietly flown back to America, where it will be buried.”
“I will find her murderer.”
“Yes, Investigator, you will bring this madman to justice. You will avenge poor Sarah's death, and you will do it with no publicity, no medals, no notice.”
“Are your hands clean?” Roemer asked them.
“You weren't called up for this,” Schaller said sharply.
Roemer held his silence while he listened to the crackling fire in the grate. He felt an odd awareness of his own mortality. His father was dying in a Swiss sanatorium, and he had viewed the body of a murdered young woman. A snatch of something from Dryden crossed his mind from his school days:
None would live past years again / Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain / And from the dregs of life think to receive / What the first sprightly running could not give
.
“In 1982, early spring,” Schaller said, “in the middle of the Iraq-Iran war, our government was approached by the Iraqi government. This was on high, above the ministerial level, you understand. One power to another, one state to another. I want you to grasp the historical perspective here, Investigator. Germany was in trouble. There was unemployment, unrest, strife. No one knew which way the wind was going to blow.
“Germany had nuclear technology for export. The government of Iraq wanted this technology, and we
agreed to sell it, subject of course to limitations.”
“The Kraftwerk Union is in the business of designing and constructing nuclear-powered electrical generating systems,” Whalpol said. “The State of Iraq has been in the market for just such a system ever since the Israelis destroyed their Osiraq reactor in 1981, and especially since the post–Gulf War dismantling of their nuclear energy program. Our government has agreed that the KwU would be granted the license for such a sale provided certain conditions were met, among them Iraq agreeing to an aggressive inspection program. An ongoing inspection program.”
“Sarah was an engineer for KwU,” Roemer said. “Was she working on the Iraqi project?”
“She was much more than that,” Whalpol said.
“She worked for you as well?” Roemer asked, an angry edge in his voice.
Schaller stepped between them again. “Understand, Roemer, that such a project does not happen overnight. There are years of research and design, at not only the technical level but the political level as well. There have been more than one hundred Iraqi citizens living and working here for the past year. Scientists, technicians, engineers, as well as lawyers and economists and bureaucrats. The project is vast. You have no conception.”
“It's been kept very quiet, I'll give you that much.”
“The Americans, not to mention our own EC neighbors, would crucify us,” Schaller cried.
Roemer smiled at Whalpol. “The Germans selling Saddam Hussein nuclear technology. The ramifications are endless.”
“Don't kid yourself, Investigator. Hussein already has his arsenal of nuclear technology, which he's managed to keep hidden from the UN inspection teams. We're giving him nothing more than an electrical generating plant. But that's not what we've been talking about here.”
“What then?”
“Murder.”
The telephone rang and Schaller picked it up. “Yes?” he said. “Yes, sir, they're both here.”
Whalpol wore a hawkish, feral look. The stage was set, Roemer thought. It would be the BND major's turn next.
SCHALLER FINISHED ON the telephone. There was a slight sheen of sweat on his brow. He seemed distracted. “In heaven's name, I cannot understand what they expect of us,” he mumbled.
“Anything from the other camp yet?” Whalpol asked quietly.
Schaller shook his head. “Not a thing. But they are expecting results already. Pull the rabbit out of the hat. I believe they are petrified up there in Berlin. Simply quaking in their boots. It's dangerous.”
Roemer was surprised at the Prosecutor's irreverence. But then there had been a lot of surprises already this night.
Whalpol held out his glass, and Schaller poured him another brandy. Roemer declined. His stomach was acting up.
“I was called into this business in February, when the final negotiations had just gotten under way,” Whalpol said. “I was to head up a watchdog committee.
Try to make sure no one went astray, and the like.”
“Why not the BfV?” Roemer asked. “All this happened on German soil.”
“Division of labor, as simple as that,” the BND major replied. “We didn't want to be stumbling over each other's boots. We were involved in a very touchy situation. One in which there was the possibility of a major international incident, and one in which there was a distinct possibility that the Iraqis were playing us for fools.” Whalpol smiled. “You should have been witness to the absolute chaos when the old boy himself showed up here.”
“The ‘old boy'?”
“Saddam Hussein, of course. Keeping it straight and secret was no easy chore. There are certain technical aspects that would indicate that the Iraqis were indeed planning to use our technology to create nuclear-weapons-grade material. It was our job to watch for such signals.”
Of the two federal agencies involved with security matters, Whalpol's BND normally dealt with threats from outside the country, and the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (the BfV) dealt with threats from within. It had been decided at high levels, Whalpol explained, that the BND would take charge of the overall project, leaving the local security matters to the District Prosecutor's office. One federal security agency and one federal police agency. Clean and simple.
“I was to take care of security and intelligence, and Ernst, through his good offices, was to pick up the odd bits: the traffic ticket, the stray drunk-and-disorderly. All of these people, remember, are here in secret and with full diplomatic immunity.”
“The murder.”
“When that occurred, I came to Ernst and asked for his recommendation: Who simply is the very best investigator in the land? He mentioned your name, and I agreed wholeheartedly.”
“Were you watching her?”
“There was no need.”
“How did you find out so quickly that she had been murdered?”
“I discovered her body.”
“You were the anonymous telephone caller?” Roemer asked in wonder.
Whalpol nodded. “She was having car troubles, so I drove her home around ten. After I left her off I began to worry about her. Her mental state. So I went back. But I was too late.”
“What was wrong with her mental state?”
“Please, Roemer,” Schaller said. “There will be time for all of those questions.”
“We're not trying to hide anything here, Investigator. Before we're done this morning, you will know everything. I promise.”
Roemer held his silence. Was it axiomatic, he mused, that the higher one went the dirtier the jobs became?
“This all began on a need-to-know basis, and the list is still quite small. The Iraqis are here working out the technology and engineering for the construction of a twelve-hundred-megawatt neutron source reactor and isotope separator. Naturally we are extremely interested in just what their intentions are. Honorable or dishonorable.”
“Can there be any doubt, Major?” Roemer asked.
“That's politics, my dear Investigator. Whereas I deal with security.”
“So you sent spies after them to find out if they were developing weapons technology out of what we were selling them?”
“It's more complicated than that, actually, but in essence that was one of our charters for which the supervisory staff at KwU was admirably suited. But a lot of work toward that end can be done in such a fashion that it simply cannot be detected by normal workaday methods. From what I understand, certain mathematical
techniques necessary for plutonium-refining methods can be worked out under apparently innocent guises. One scientist talks with another. Friendly competition, if you will. Fireside chats.”
German guilt, Roemer thought. “But such an effort would be directed. It would have to be preplanned.”
“Exactly.” Whalpol beamed. “Now you have an understanding of the problem we have faced. Keeping a tight rein on the technology is one thing; keeping track of the personalities and their relationships with each other is another, certainly much more difficult business.”
The Iraqis almost certainly knew that the Germans would set out spies, and would in turn bring in their own intelligence teams.
There were four scenarios. In the first, the Iraqis were not interested in weapons technology, and had sent no spies. In that case the BND would have nothing to do. Security would belong entirely to the Chief District Prosecutor's office.
In the second scenario, the Iraqis were not after the illegal technology, but had nevertheless sent watchdogs to make sure their people were treated properly. The BND's job would be only to identify Iraq's intelligence operatives and isolate them.
In the third, least likely scenario, the Iraqis were after bomb technology, but cold, with no Secret Service backup.
And in the final scenario, the one with the highest likelihood, the Iraqis had come to Germany to grab anything and everything they could, and had mounted a highly sophisticated intelligence operation, using not only the team members, but a few well-chosen Mukhabarat operatives.
Roemer felt another chill. In all of Whalpol's cold, dispassionate account there was no regard for the people involved. For the human element. A young woman lay dead in Bad Godesberg. He couldn't get the vision of her ruined body out of his head.
“Weeks before the main body of the Iraqi team arrived, we received a list of their personnel, who would all travel on diplomatic passports. A few were rejected for various security reasons. Most, however, were allowed to come to Germany. We investigated every team member who would be working on the project.”
Roemer had been caught up in his own thoughts as Whalpol talked. He suddenly sensed he had missed something important.
“Just a minute, Herr Major, please.”
Whalpol fixed Roemer with a steady gaze. “Yes?”
“You knew ahead of time which of the Iraqi team were Secret Service … Mukhabarat?”
Whalpol smiled dryly. “It is more complicated than even that, Investigator. We have identified a number of the Mukhabarat officers, including their field chief, but others on the team … damned near every member of the team was and is a potential intelligence operative.”
“But you did say you recruited Sarah Razmarah.”
Whalpol nodded. He seemed smug, as if he were a teacher allowing his prize student to work something out that, while difficult, was obvious.
“You recruited her because you needed some skill that was unique to her. Not merely her engineering ability, but perhaps her looks? Perhaps her loneliness? These are Arabs.”
Whalpol glanced over at Schaller. “Simply stated, Sarah was recruited because she was a good engineer, she was Arab, she was quite good-looking and she was an unknown. Someone from outside the German engineering establishment. A dark horse.”
“Plus she was Iranian-born, she had no love for the Iraqis.”
Whalpol shrugged.
“But you must have had something or someone very specific in mind for her.”
“Ahmed Pavli,” Whalpol said. “One of their chief engineers.”
“A weak link?”
Whalpol nodded.
“Sarah was to get close to him—in his bed—and find out what he knew?”
“She was very good.”
“This fellow, he is a man of medium height, husky, dark, perhaps even sad-looking?”
“Yes.”
The woman in Two-B had told Lieutenant Manning that Sarah had two regular visitors. Pavli, husky and dark. And the other, tall and thin. Whalpol.
“Did Ahmed Pavli kill her?”
Whalpol took a long time to answer, and when he did he wasn't as sure of himself as he had been earlier. “It's a possibility which I've given serious consideration.” He looked down at his hands. “But I don't think he did it. I wish it were that simple, you know.”
“Your and Pavli were her only regular visitors?”
“Presumably.”
“You for your regular reports.”
Whalpol nodded.
“And Pavli … because he was in love with her.”
Whalpol's eyes glistened. “I didn't give a damn about this man. Only Sarah concerned me. I felt a certain responsibility. I researched her background. I recruited her.”
Roemer waited.
“Pavli was in love with her, all right. But she fell in love with him. In the end she wanted to quit.”
“You sonofabitch,” Roemer said softly.
Whalpol went on as if he hadn't heard. “I gave her a list of people on the Iraqi team whom I wanted her to get close to. Pavli was to be her first … but not her only one.”
“She hid your list behind the
Schrank
in her bedroom.”
“It didn't take me five minutes to find it.”
“Did you kill her, Herr Major?”
Schaller gasped.
Whalpol's head jerked up. “No! What in God's name do you take me for? What sort of person do you think I am?”
“I honestly don't know,” Roemer said.
“I knew there was trouble,” Whalpol continued woodenly. “I've known it for weeks. I tried to talk to her, make her see the futility of it, but she wouldn't listen.”
“Did you try to pull her off the project?”
“I did not. It was too important. Besides, we were beginning to suspect that the Iraqis were feeding Pavli disinformation, knowing that it would get to Sarah.”
“I didn't think they were that sophisticated.”
“They learned a lot from the Gulf War.”
“Did they have her spotted?”
“We think so. If Sarah had been pulled out, another pipeline would have been shut off. They would have placed someone else in the loop. An unknown. Someone we might not have been able to control.”
It was a different world in which these sorts of people lived and operated, Roemer thought. A world devoid of … he searched for the word … devoid of compassion for the human results of their manipulations. This seemed to be his night for revelations.
“I met with her on a regular basis. Sometimes at her apartment, at other times in town, or even at KwU. On the chance that she was being watched, we were very careful. Always.”
“Then her watchdogs may have seen her killer,” Roemer suggested.
“If that is the case, and if she was murdered by someone on the Iraqi team, you will be working against a double handicap.”
Roemer could think of nothing to say.
“At first her product was quite good, you know. She seemed to take to her assignment. But then it began to
fall off, and I suggested to her that she might have run her course with Pavli, that perhaps she should move on. But she kept putting me off. She kept hinting at bigger and better things.”
“You were wild for what she was bringing you … big or little.”
“When I realized that she had fallen in love, I tried to discourage her. But I didn't want to upset something. By then she herself was becoming unstable.”
“What'd you expect?”
Whalpol made no answer.
Roemer got to his feet.
“Don't go, Investigator,” Whalpol said. “We do need your help. Honestly.”
“To clean up the mess you've created?”
“No. In actuality very little has changed. The Iraqis will remain on the project. We are talking about eight billion marks here. They will continue to spy on us, and we will continue to spy on them. We want the murder resolved.”
“But delicately,” Roemer said.
Whalpol nodded. “Is it so difficult for you to understand?”
“On the contrary, Major, I believe that I understand more than you want me to understand.”

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