The Eagle's Covenant (6 page)

He also had a team of officers at the house interviewing the staff. But for Schiller and Joanna, Hoffman would let no-one but himself interview them. One other concession to that was a police secretary taking notes while he spoke to the great man and his English daughter-in-law.

Schiller glanced briefly at Hoffman and shook his head. “That is not a particularly bright question. I am extremely wealthy, so by definition I am a target for every crank in Germany.”

“Nevertheless, Herr Schiller, it is a question I must ask,” Hoffman reminded him. “And I would say that wealth does not necessarily have anything to do with it.”

Schiller glowered at him. “What other reason can there be?”

Hoffman wondered if Schiller was being deliberately stupid or genuinely believed that money was the only reason for kidnapping a two week old infant. He ignored the retort and asked Joanna.

“Can you think of any reason, Frau Schiller?”

Joanna looked extremely pale. She had obviously been crying for most of that appalling day and had put in a great deal of effort to come to this interview. Hoffman was in no doubt that she would be unable to tell him anything. But he was wrong.

“She was South African,” she said, not taking her eyes from the floor. It was said in such a matter of fact way that it took both men completely by surprise.

Schiller pivoted in his chair. The anger that had been in his face disappeared quickly. Hoffman tensed slightly. He leaned forward.

“How do you know that?”

Joanna looked at him. There was little expression in her face. “She spoke to me in English. She had a South African accent.”

“She spoke to you in English?”

Joanna shrugged. “Yes. Why not? Everybody knows I’m English. It’s public knowledge.”

Hoffman could see a small, almost incandescent glimmer of hope. It was often the smallest, most innocuous piece of information that broke a case.

“But not everybody knows that you speak German.”

“I don’t follow you.”

Hoffman hadn’t expected her to. He explained what was causing him a little excitement. “As far as I am aware, you never give interviews. Is that correct?”

Joanna nodded. “It’s an almost unwritten condition being a member of the Schiller family.” She looked at Schiller who showed his acquiescence by nodding slowly.

Hoffman stood up then. He found pacing the floor helped his train of thought. “It could mean that she wasn’t sure how good your German might be, which is why she spoke to you in your own language.”

“That’s a fairly weak conclusion, Hoffman,” Schiller interjected. “If she was South African as my daughter-in-law suggests, then she was merely talking to her in their common tongue.”

“Unless she was a Boer, then she might have spoken Afrikaans.”

“What does it matter, anyway?” Joanna asked in despair. “How can it help?”

Hoffman took his eyes away from Schiller who was glaring at him again. He wondered if the old man was upset by the kidnap or the fact that he was no longer in control. He spoke to Joanna.

“She might have been told to address you in English. Or she might even have spoken to you before.”

Joanna shook her head vigorously. “No, I don’t believe it.”

Hoffman didn’t expect her to. “Could you describe her to me?”

She shook her head. “Not really. She was wearing a camouflage uniform. Rather like a paramilitary. And she had a ski mask pulled over her head. All I could see was her eyes.”

Joanna stopped there.

Hoffman waited for her to continue, but it was if she had seen something, or remembered something significant.

“What is it?” he asked. Schiller was now caught by this little development. He put a hand out to Joanna, quietly urging her to speak.

“Her eyes.” She looked at Hoffman. “I’ll never forget her eyes.” Neither of the men said a thing. They both waited. “So sinister and so evil.” She looked at Schiller. “Didn’t you see it Manfred?”

He apologised quietly. He hadn’t of course. Fear had blotted it all out. “I was afraid,
meine liebchen
, blind with terror I think.” His voice trembled a little as he spoke.

“I will never forget her eyes, never!” Joanna spoke with understated venom which Hoffman found quite understandable. He wondered, obliquely, what would happen if the two women ever came face to face.

“Frau Schiller, if we were able to produce any photographs of women we suspect, would you look at them?”

Joanna made a sarcastic grimace. “You mean mug shots? Every time you see a picture of some hapless convict staring at the camera, their eyes always seem to be glazed over. I doubt if I could help you.”

“Not even if it was, say, a natural photograph?”

Joanna folded her arms, tucking each hand beneath under her arms. She rocked back and forth, tears beginning to well up. She kept her face down, trying hard not to cry.

“Oh my God, I could kill the fucking bitch. I could, I could.” She started sobbing. Schiller immediately went to comfort her. Hoffman knew the interview was at an end.

“We’ll speak again tomorrow Herr Schiller.” He turned towards Joanna. “Frau Schiller.” Hoffman expected no acknowledgement and got none as he indicated to the policewoman that they should leave.

Hoffman sat in his official car deep in thought as it negotiated the winding road away from Schiller’s house. Something teased at his brain. A nagging thought that would not go away. One that made him think that Joanna had kept something from him.

*

“Do it now Jo-Jo! Now!”

Breggie was fighting with the buttons on Schneider’s shirt, her fingers trembling with anticipation. They were sprawled on a long, leather Chesterfield settee. Schneider was astride Breggie. He had been teasing her mercilessly. He knew what state she would be in because she was always the same after a field operation. He loved this moment; Breggie would implore him to make love to her as the lust within her swelled to almost uncontrollable levels. It was an adrenalin rush of pure emotion that drove her to such hedonism, and he knew just how far he would need to go before she became violent. It was a schizophrenic change of frightening proportions when her savagery seemed to be driven by manic lust.

Schneider had allowed that to happen once and regretted it. Breggie had beaten him with closed fists until he had been forced to subdue her with his own strength. When it was over, she had asked him to forgive her. She told him that she had demons inside her and did not know how to control them. Once she had started there was little she could do, if anything, to stop.

Breggie would very soon be at that point and Schneider knew it. As she ripped the last button from his shirt he turned her over and rode her like a rutting lion. Her cries of immutable pleasure tore at his ears until the climax of their lovemaking burst upon them both. It brought them to a collapsed, breathless and enraptured state, leaving them exhausted but immeasurably content.

They lay like that, wrapped in each other’s arms for several minutes. Schneider was drifting off to sleep when Breggie heard a sound from the small cot in which she had put the baby. She turned her head and glanced towards the infant. His small fingers moved and then settled. Breggie looked back at the top of Schneider’s head, nestled uncomfortably on her breasts. With some effort she eased him off and slid from beneath him. She picked Schneider’s shirt up from the floor and put it on. Then she padded across to the cot and pulled back the shawl to check the baby was OK

Breggie and Schneider were in a small, detached house in a suburb of Düsseldorf. They had never been there before. The house had been unoccupied and offered for sale with a local estate agent. An elderly couple had purchased the property and explained, unnecessarily, that they would only use the place occasionally. At other times their family might use it when visiting the area.

The new owners of the property had made no attempt to introduce themselves to the neighbours other than a passing greeting. Indeed, if anybody had asked about the new neighbours, they would have been told that they kept themselves very much to themselves and seemed to be away more than they were at home.

So, when Breggie and Schneider arrived at the house in the late evening, it would not have appeared unusual to anybody who might happen to have seen them. And the plan was that the two of them would be seen, very briefly, out with the baby like any young married couple. A Volkswagen car had been left in the garage for their use. And Joseph had planned to dump the van and use his own car, maintaining, he claimed, his own little bit of independence.

Breggie was quite happy with that arrangement. It was unlikely that either of them would be linked to the kidnap. Their identities were unknown to the police so their photographs were unlikely to appear in the newspapers. Breggie also knew they had powerful forces working for them so they had little to fear.

*

Conor closed his mind to the blasphemies he was bestowing upon the two evil bastards who had tried to kill him, and concentrated his efforts on getting away from the burning house as quickly as possible. He was still in pain from the battering he had taken in the explosion, but still able to think clearly. The place would soon be crawling with police and he had to be miles away by then.

Conor had no idea where he was, but that didn’t concern him. Getting back to his apartment in Cologne was his first priority. The sound of the approaching siren was getting louder so he pushed himself away from the tree against which he had been resting and ran, as best he could, into the darkness.

The thought that was to keep him going; the over-riding aim, his
raison d’etre
was to find Breggie de Kok and her twisted lover, Joseph and make sure they both died in the same way as his late, lamented colleagues.

And to ensure they both knew why before they died.

*

On the table in front of Levi Eshkol were the four documents. Each document was lengthy and of a fair size. Eshkol had scanned the pages of each document, carefully turning each leaf and speed reading as he made steady and gratifying progress through them.

The four men who had brought the documents to the house were now talking quietly amongst themselves, giving Eshkol the opportunity to browse through the fruits of their labours. They had all played their part in what could prove to be one of the momentous turning points in modern Israel’s chequered history.

Weitzman was responsible for the document covering the Americas. His legal team had worked in oppressive secrecy putting together the framework of the document. All members had been sworn to secrecy by Weitzman with the promise of great wealth when their work was completed. He had also promised them an uncertain future if news of their work leaked out.

The second document had been the responsibility of Binbaum. His team had covered Western Europe, but not the Federal Republic. All assets in central Europe had been included too. Conditions had been the same for his team as they had for Weitzman’s.

Goldman held responsibility for South Africa and Australasia. His cloak of respectability hid his real politics but opened many doors, particularly in the one party states like Zimbabwe and Zaire. The third document was his.

Hess, naturally, had been in an excellent position to concentrate on Germany. He was able to assemble a hand-picked team from the fifty thousand Jews who lived in the Republic. Their allegiance would be total and without question. No need for bribes but promises had been made by him nonetheless.

This left Eshkol. His own document was still in his briefcase. There was no need to scan the pages of course, but it covered Israel and other areas of interest that the other members of the group had been unable to cover. When he had finished reading through the other four, he pulled his own contribution from the briefcase and laid it carefully on top of the others. He felt an almost overwhelming relief even though their task was still not complete. But to reach this stage had been like coming to the end of one part of an extremely tedious and dangerous journey. The rest, God willing, should be relatively straightforward.

He smiled and stretched languidly, then placed his hand almost reverentially on the binders which he had stacked one on top of the other. There, on paper, was Manfred Schiller’s entire empire. The others immediately stopped their quiet bubble of conversation and looked his way.

“Gentlemen,” he said. “I give you The Eagle’s Covenant.”

It was midnight and Hoffman was back at his desk at police headquarters in Bonn. He had cleared it of all outstanding work, consigning most of it to an ambitious, young graduate policeman who was coming up for promotion. He had phoned his wife to tell her what she already knew; that he would not be coming home that night. A truckle bed was made up in the corner of the room just inside the door of Hoffman’s office. Jansch had wandered in and out a few times in the last hour and was now sitting opposite him.

“Well?” Hoffman asked, stifling a yawn. “Is it good news? Have you caught the kidnappers?”

Jansch smiled at his boss’s deprecating humour. “No, but we have the results of the DNA sample.”

Hoffman sat up. “Do we have a match?”

Jansch slid the file across the desk. “Chap called Karl Trucco. There’s a full profile on him in there.”

“Fill me in.”

“American. Member of a militia group in Michigan. Arrested in connection with the Alfred Murray Federal Building explosion in Oklahoma. That was in April, ninety five. FBI linked him with the Branch Davidian cult at Waco. Remember the siege? The Alfred Murray explosion was a couple of years after the Waco siege.” Hoffman stifled another yawn. Jansch continued. “FBI thought he’d perished in the Waco fire.”

“He probably wasn’t even there,” Hoffman mumbled. Most democratic police forces held the rather cynical view that the Waco siege had been handled badly by the FBI. Hoffman had concluded that too. “They were never too sure of who was in that farm building or how many perished. Still,” he observed brightly, “it gives us a name. Anything else?”

Jansch tapped the file. “We’re fairly sure of the weapons they used, but it’s not a lot of use unless we can find the guns. We do know, however, what kind of device was used to blow up the third car.” He turned the pages of the file and ran his finger along a paragraph. “It was a limpet stun bomb.”

Hoffman had never heard of such a device. “I’ve never heard of them,” he said.

Jansch closed the file. “It’s a relatively new device. We got the information from the army. Made by an armaments company in the Czech Republic. The name’s in there,” he added, pointing to the file. “Can’t pronounce it though. The device is clamped to the side of the vehicle by a powerful magnet. It has an inner, spring loaded steel ring which activates the bomb. A shaped charge blows a neat hole in the body of the car followed later, milliseconds I am told, by a stun grenade which explodes about one metre after release. It’s a device favoured by specialist forces when dealing with terrorist hijackings.”

“So why were the occupants all shot to death?” Hoffman asked him. “It seems a trifle unnecessary if they have all been incapacitated.”

“Well, I spoke to an officer in G9.” This was the
Grenzschutzgruppe 9,
Germany’s crack anti-terrorist unit. “Apparently it’s the way they do things. Take no chances, you see. You have to make sure the terrorists are dead. Incidentally, the device would only be used, normally, when storming an aeroplane. Or a bus, perhaps. So long as it’s a thin skinned vehicle. Quite effective I’m told.”

Hoffman considered the implication of what Jansch had just said. It was quite important.

“So the person who used it could quite possibly be a former member of one of the Special Forces?”

Jansch conceded it might be so. “It’s a possibility,” he agreed, “but only a possibility; it takes no special skill to use one.”

Hoffman considered the ludicrous situation of advanced technology, as was the case of the stun grenade, having to be applied by the use of old fashioned bravado. Whoever whacked that grenade on the car had to be quick and confident. And ruthless too.

“You’d better get on to Meckenheim. Fill them in on the details. They might have a name or two they can give us.”

Meckenheim was a village just south of Bonn. It housed the top, anti-terrorist clearing house in Europe where over 1000 officers waged a covert war against militant extremism. All the top security services had a permanent liaison officer there, and all forms of terrorist threats, from whatever source of political and religious persuasion, were filtered through the complex and sophisticated data banks housed in the building.

“I’ve already done that, sir.”

“Good man,” Hoffman said, and meant it. Jansch was often one step ahead of the game “Now, what about satellite photos? Did we get any?”

Jansch shook his head. “Nothing.”

Hofmann’s head bobbed up and down: another cul-de-sac. But it was a policeman’s lot to wander up plenty of those. He yawned again and had Jansch trying not to copy him even though was just as tired as Hoffman.

“OK Uwe, here’s a little pearl for you. See what you make of it.” There was nothing to make of it really, but he wanted the seed planted in Jansch’s subconscious.

“I have a feeling that Joanna Schiller knows the identity of one of the kidnappers. But she doesn’t know it. Not yet anyway.”

It brought Jansch up like a jack in the box. Before he had a chance to say anything, Hoffman started to describe the interview with Schiller and Joanna.

“I believe that because of her reaction; the way she suddenly stopped, like you do when something occurs to you in conversation that could actually have an impact on what you’re saying at the time. The way she stopped when she mentioned the kidnapper’s eyes. It was just as if she had remembered that she had seen, or met the woman. It was quite uncanny.”

“It would be a helluva break if she had seen this woman before, but it may be difficult without a positive ID.” Jansch couldn’t see any way beyond normal police work that would budge Joanna Schiller’s mind. He envisaged an identity parade of possible suspects, but it was unlikely that they could pick up the kidnapper, whoever she was, simply by ‘making enquiries’. He said as much to Hoffman.

“But that’s how it has to be done Uwe, although that is something of an over simplification,” Hoffman admitted. “We need to talk to lots and lots of her past friends and acquaintances. Find out if any of them have South African accents or connections. Good old police procedures, Uwe. Put a team on it first thing in the morning. You’ll also need the help of the British and South African Police. But don’t tell them why. Send people over there, and make sure you send some bright lads. Men like you.”

Jansch smiled self-consciously and yawned suddenly. “God, I’m tired.”

Hoffman smiled. “Aren’t we both? You get off then.” He looked over at his truckle bed. “I’ll get some sleep myself. Back here for six, Uwe. I’ll see you then.”

Jansch left the office without being told a second time. The room was now empty except for the police chief. Tomorrow he would have a full, twenty four hour shift of manpower as officers drafted in from other divisions began work.

Hoffman peeled off his jacket, booked an alarm call with the switchboard, and lay down on the bed. He wanted to mull over a few things about the case, but within a few minutes he was sound asleep.

Moments later the door to Doctor Kistler’s penthouse office suite opened and the Police President walked out. Instead of riding the lift down to the ground floor, he walked down the stairs to operations room in which Hoffman had his unit set up. He opened the operations room door and immediately saw the quiet figure asleep on the small bed. He ignored him and walked across to Hoffman’s desk.

The file which Jansch had left was on top of the desk, unopened. Kistler spun the file, opened it and scanned the contents quickly, untroubled by the fact that the police chief was sound asleep just a metre or so from him.

Satisfied, he closed the file and walked softly from the room.

*

Conor killed the engine of the Opel and sat there for a moment in the pervading silence, not knowing which part of his body hurt the most. Much of it would be salved by a hot bath, but the bruising around his rib cage, and he was now convinced that’s all it was, would take longer to heal. He was quite sure now that he had not been burnt; the scorching he could smell earlier was evident only on his clothing.

He had parked the car in Lonnericher Strasse, close to the Kölner Hauptbahnhof railway Station in Cologne. It was about three o’clock in the morning and there was very little movement in the streets. He was content to wait awhile and consider his options. Not that he had many.

Stealing the car had proved quite easy for a man of Conor Lenihan’s skills. When he found himself well clear of the burning house and in quiet, sleepy suburbia, he had set about finding a car. He had waited until about two o’clock in the morning knowing that by then, most of the neighbourhood would be well asleep.

He wanted an old car; one that did not have a sophisticated, immobiliser. He soon found an old Opel Corsa, and within minutes was on his way.

Conor drove for a while and soon found he was leaving a town called Schwelm, where the safe house had been situated. That was an irony, that a ‘safe’ house should be bombed with the intention of murdering all the occupants. It was situated on the south east of Germany’s industrial Ruhr heartland, the powerhouse of Germany’s economy. He continued driving until he reached Cologne and pulled into a side road. He waited for several minutes before climbing out of the car, making sure nobody was about. His apartment was about a mile away off Boltenstern Strasse near the docks, just west of the Mulheimer Bridge. There was no way he could really make himself inconspicuous at that time of night, but by walking in such a manner that he looked like someone going home, perhaps returning from a party, he was quite sure little notice would be taken of him.

He reached his apartment about thirty minutes later. He saw several people on the way; early vendors, street cleaners, vagrants, people going home from night clubs, but no police or someone running at him with a bomb or a gun. Conor’s flat was on the first floor of a tenement block. He knew nobody else in the block because he had always kept himself to himself. He paid his rent through an agency and used the alias John Buck.

It was cold in the flat, but not unbearably so. The first thing Conor did was to run a bath. There was a gas water heater in the bathroom so hot water was not a problem. The next thing he did was to make a pot of strong tea and carry it through to the bathroom. He peeled of everything and stepped into the bath. It was all Conor could do to keep awake, but he fought the urge to sleep, promising himself that sublime sanctuary when he was ready. Right then he needed to plan carefully, and had several thoughts germinating in his mind, thoughts that could result in the deaths of a lot of people. And Conor didn’t care who he had to kill to get to Breggie de Kok and her leviathan boyfriend, Joseph Schneider.

*

Breggie opened her eyes. It was dark in the room and she lay there for a moment. She wasn’t aware of any sound that might have woken her. Joseph lay beside her, his breathing quiet and shallow. They had made love until quite late. It had been as furious as it had been pleasurable. Joseph was exhausted by it all and Breggie had felt physically bruised, but she knew it would pass.

Why had she woken? She pulled back the bedclothes and sat up on the edge of the bed. Joseph stirred, made a noise and turned over. She ignored him and searched for her dressing gown in the darkness. She decided to go to the bathroom and padded quietly across the floor, pausing at the cot in which she had laid the baby Schiller. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness she was just able to make out the figure of the infant. He seemed quiet. She reached her hand into the cot and gently pulled the top cover clear of his face. Then she laid her hand on his tiny chest and could feel the measured rise and fall as he breathed. Satisfied she went through to the bathroom.

When she returned to the bedroom, Breggie climbed into bed and cuddled up to Joseph. It was a little while before she finally succumbed to the beguiling warmth and comfort of the bed and she drifted off to sleep.

In the small cot, the baby lay sleeping, oblivious to the big world and the dramas that dogged it. Unaware of it, his tiny brain sensed the smallest quiver deep inside his chest. As the baby drew warm air into his lungs, a small sliver of mucus covered a microscopic airway until it burst under the pressure. This tiniest of irritations was like a reed in the wind and the vibration carried up to his throat and erupted in a single, explosive cough.

Breggie woke again but there was still no noise. She lay her head back on the pillow and wondered how long it would be before the little mite in the cot woke up for his feed. And how much sleep she would get that night. She drifted off to sleep and, at last, everything was peaceful again.

*

Joanna lay awake in the darkness, her eyes wide open. Unlike Breggie de Kok, sleep was a stranger to her that night. She had tried reading, watching a late night movie on television, blanking her mind and breathing deeply, but it was all to no avail. Her mind kept going back to the horrific scenes of the kidnap. The noise, the deaths, and her darling Manny being cruelly snatched from her. The woman’s eyes floated before her, untouchable and unreachable. The eyes were manic, yet beautiful. Cauldrons of Satanic power, pools of enchantment. Where had she seen them before?

The question had burned a fire in Joanna’s soul and threatened to destroy her unless she could find the answer. Joanna knew that if she could put a name to the eyes, the policeman, Hoffman, would find her. But how many people does one meet in a lifetime she wondered? How many people leave some kind of unforgettable impression? The questions rolled through her mind like tumbling balls in a lottery. If only she could pick the right one.