The Holcroft Covenant (50 page)

The unknown man with the rose tattoo on his hand was an instant legend. Tattoo parlors from cities everywhere reported a surge in business.

“My God, he did it,” said Noel.

“Yet his name isn’t mentioned anywhere,” Helden said. “It’s unlike Johann to give up credit in something as extraordinary as this.”

“You said he’d changed, that Geneva had affected him. I believe that. The man I talked to wasn’t concerned with himself. I told him that the bank in Geneva didn’t want complications. The directors would be looking for anything that might disqualify one of us, that would put the money in potentially compromising circumstances. A man who’s placed himself in a dangerous situation, who’s had to deal with the kind of people your brother’s had to deal with in tracking the Tinamou, could scare the hell out of the bankers.”

“But you and my brother say there’s someone more powerful than the Rache or the O
DESSA
—
or
Wolfsschanze—who’s trying to stop you. How do you think the men in Geneva will accept all that?”

“They’ll be told only what they have to be told,”
said Holcroft. “Which may be nothing, if your brother and I find out who it is.”

“Can you?”

“Maybe. Johann thinks so, and God knows he’s had more experience in these matters than I’ve had. It’s been a crazy process of elimination. First we’re convinced it’s one thing—one group—then another; then it turns out to be neither.”

“You mean the O
DESSA
and the Rache?”

“Yes. They’re eliminated. Now we’re looking for someone else. All we need is a name, an identity.”

“What will you do when you find it?”

“I don’t know,” Holcroft said. “I hope your brother will tell me. I just know that whatever we do, we’ve got to do it quickly. Miles will get to me in a few days. He’s going to connect me publicly to homicides ranging from Kennedy Airport to the Plaza Hotel. He’ll ask for extradition, and he’ll get it. If that happens, Geneva’s finished, and for all intents and purposes, so am I.”

“If they can find you,” said Helden. “We have ways …”

Noel stared at her. “No,” he replied. “I’m not going to live with three changes of clothing and rubber-soled shoes and guns with silencers. I want you to be a part of my life, but I won’t be a part of yours.”

“You may not have a choice.”

The telephone rang, startling them both. Holcroft picked it up.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Fresca.”

It was Tennyson.

“Can you talk?” asked Noel.

“Yes. This telephone is fine, and I doubt the George Cinq switchboard is interested in a routine call from London. Still, we should be careful.”

“I understand. Congratulations. You did what you said you would.”

“I had a great deal of help.”

“You worked with the British?”

“Yes. You were right. I should have done so a long time ago. They were splendid.”

“I’m glad to hear it. It’s nice to know we have friends.”

“More than that. We have the identity of Geneva’s enemy.”

“What?”

“We have the names. We can move against them now. We
must
move against them; the killing must stop.”

“How?…”

“I’ll explain when I see you. Your friend Kessler was close to the truth.”

“A splinter faction of O
DESSA
?”

“Be careful,” interrupted Tennyson. “Let’s say a group of tired old men with too much money and a vendetta that goes back to the end of the war.”

“What do we do?”

“Perhaps very little. The British may do it for us.”

“They know about Geneva?”

“No. They simply understand a debt.”

“It’s more than we could ask for.”

“No more than we deserve,” said Tennyson. “If I may say so.”

“You may. These … old men. They were responsible for
everything?
Including New York?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m clear.”

“You will be shortly.”

“Thank Christ!” Noel looked at Helden across the room and smiled. “What do you want me to do?”

“It’s Wednesday. Be in Geneva Friday night. I’ll see you then. I’ll take the late flight from Heathrow and get there by eleven-thirty or midnight. Call Kessler in Berlin; tell him to join us.”

“Why not today, or tomorrow?”

“I’ve got things to do. They’ll be helpful to us. Make it Friday. Do you have a hotel?”

“Yes. The d’Accord. My mother’s flying to Geneva. She got word to me to stay there.”

There was a silence on the line from London. Finally, Tennyson spoke, his voice a whisper. “What did you say?”

“My mother’s flying to Geneva.”

“We’ll talk later,” said Helden’s brother, barely audibly. “I’ve got to go.”

Tennyson replaced the phone on the small table in his Kensington flat. As always, he detested the instrument when it was the carrier of unexpected news. News in
this case that could be as dangerous as the emergence of the Nachrichtendienst.

What insanity had made Althene Clausen decide to fly to Geneva? It was never part of the plan—as she understood the plan. Did the old woman think she could travel to Switzerland without arousing suspicions, especially
now?
Or perhaps the years had made her careless. In that event she would not live long enough to regret her indiscretion. Perhaps, again, she had divided loyalties—as she understood those loyalties. If so, she would be reminded of her priorities before she took leave of a life in which she had abused so many.

So be it. He had his own priorities; she would take her place among them. The covenant of Wolfsschanze was about to be fulfilled. Everything was timing now.

First the lists. There were two, and they were the key to Wolfsschanze. One was eleven pages in length, with the names of nearly sixteen hundred men and women—powerful men and women in every country in the world. These were the elite of the
Sonnenkinder
, the leaders waiting for the signal from Geneva, waiting to receive the millions that would purchase influence, buy elections, shape policies. This was the primary list, and with it would emerge the outlines of the Fourth Reich.

But outlines required substance, depth. Leaders needed followers. These would come with the second list, this one in the form of a hundred spools of film. The master list. Microdot records of their people in every part of the globe. By now, thousands upon thousands, begat and recruited by the children sent out of the Reich by ship and plane and submarine.

Operation
Sonnenkinder
.

The lists, the names. One copy only, never to be duplicated, guarded as closely as any holy grail. For years they had been kept and updated by Maurice Graff in Brazil, then presented to Johann von Tiebolt on his twenty-fifth birthday. The ceremony signified the transfer of power; the chosen new absolute leader had exceeded all expectations.

John Tennyson had brought the lists to England, knowing it was imperative to find a repository safer than any bank, more removed from potential scrutiny than any vault in London. He had found his secret place in an
obscure mining town in Wales, with a
Sonnenkind
who would gladly give his life to protect the precious documents.

Ian Llewellen: brother of Morgan, second-in-command of Beaumont’s
Argo
.

And it was nearly time for the Welshman to arrive. After he had delivered his cargo, the loyal
Sonnenkind
would make the sacrifice he had pleaded to make only days ago when they drove down the highway from Heathrow. His death was mandatory; no one could be aware of those lists, those names. When that sacrifice was made, only two men on earth would have the key to Wolfsschanze. One a quiet professor of history in Berlin, the other a man revered by British Intelligence—above suspicion.

Nachrichtendienst. The next priority.

Tennyson stared at the sheet of paper next to the telephone; it had been there for several hours. It was another list—light-years away from the
Sonnenkinder
—given him by Payton-Jones. It was the Nachrichtendienst.

Eight names, eight men. And what the British had not learned in two days he had learned in less than two hours. Five of those men were dead. Three remained, one of them now close to death in a sanatorium outside of Stuttgart. That left two: the traitor, Klaus Falkenheim, known as Herr Oberst, and a former diplomat of eighty-three named Werner Gerhardt, who lived quietly in a Swiss village on Lake Neuchâtel.

But old men did not travel in transatlantic aircraft and put strychnine in glasses of whiskey. They did not beat a man unconscious for a photograph. They did not fire guns at that same man in a French village or assault that man in a back alley in Berlin.

The Nachrichtendienst had indoctrinated younger, very capable disciples. Indoctrinated them to the point of absolute commitment … as the disciples of Wolfsschanze were committed.

Nachrichtendienst! Falkenheim, Gerhardt. How long had they known about Wolfsschanze?

Tomorrow he would find out. In the morning he would take a plane to Paris, and call on Falkenheim, on the hated Herr Oberst. Consummate actor, consummate garbage. Betrayer of the Reich.

Tomorrow he would call on Falkenheim and break him. Then kill him.

A car horn sounded from outside. Tennyson looked at his watch as he walked to the window. Eight o’clock precisely. Down in the street was the Welshman’s automobile, and inside, sealed in a steel carton, were the lists.

Tennyson took a gun from a drawer and shoved it into the holster strapped to his shoulder.

He wished the events of the night were over and he was on the plane to Paris. He could hardly wait to confront Klaus Falkenheim.

Holcroft sat silently on the couch in the semidarkness, the glow of an unseen moon filling the windows. It was four in the morning. He smoked a cigarette. He had opened his eyes fifteen minutes ago and had not been able to go back to sleep, his thoughts on the girl beside him.

Helden. She was the woman he wanted to be with for the rest of his life, yet she would not tell him where she lived or whom she lived with. It was past flippancy now; he was not interested in games any longer.

“Noel?” Helden’s voice floated across the shadows.

“Yes?”

“What’s the matter, darling?”

“Nothing. Just thinking.”

“I’ve been thinking, too.”

“I thought you were asleep.”

“I felt you get out of bed. What are you thinking about?”

“A lot of things,” he said. “Mostly Geneva. It’ll be over soon. You’re going to be able to stop running; so am I.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking about.” She smiled at him. “I want to tell you my secret.”

“Secret?”

“It’s not much of one, but I want to see your face when I tell you. Come here.”

She held out both her hands and he took them, sitting naked in front of her. “What’s your secret?”

“It’s your competition. The man I live with. Are you ready?”

“I’m ready.”

“It’s Herr Oberst. I love him.”

“The old man?” Noel breathed again.

“Yes. Are you furious?”

“Beside myself. I’ll have to challenge him to a duel.” Holcroft took her in his arms.

Helden laughed and kissed him. “I’ve got to see him today.”

“I’ll go with you. I’ve got your brother’s blessing. I’ll see if I can get his.”

“No. I must go alone. I’ll only be an hour or so.”

“Two hours. That’s the limit.”

“Two hours. I’ll stand in front of his wheelchair and say, ‘Herr Oberst. I’m leaving you for another man.’ Do you think he’ll be crushed?”

“It’ll kill him,” whispered Noel. He pulled her gently down on the bed.

Tennyson walked into the parking lot at Orly Airport and saw the gray Renault. The driver of the car was the second-highest-ranking official of the Sûreté. He had been born in Düsseldorf, but grew up a Frenchman, sent out of Germany on a plane from a remote airfield north of Essen. He was six years old at the time—March 10, 1945—and he had no memories of the Fatherland. But he did have a commitment: He was a
Sonnenkind
.

Tennyson reached the door, opened it, and climbed inside.

“Bonjour, monsieur,”
he said.

“Bonjour,”
replied the Frenchman. “You look tired.”

“It’s been a long night. Did you bring everything I asked for? I have very little time.”

“Everything.” The Sûreté official reached for a file folder on the ledge under the dashboard and handed it to the blond man. “I think you’ll find this complete.”

“Give me a summary; I’ll read it later. I want to know quickly where we stand.”

“Very well.” The Frenchman put the folder on his lap. “First things first. The man named Werner Gerhardt in Neuchâtel cannot possibly be a functioning member of the Nachrichtendienst.”

“Why not? Von Pappen had his enemies in the diplomatic corps. Why couldn’t this Gerhardt have been one of them?”

“He may very well have been. But I use the present tense; he is no longer. He’s not only senile; he’s feebleminded. He’s been this way for years; he’s a joke in the village where he lives. The old man who mumbles to himself and sings songs and feeds pigeons in the square.”

“Senility can be faked,” said Tennyson. “And ‘feeble’ is hardly a pathological term.”

“There’s proof. He’s an outpatient at the local clinic, with a bona fide medical record. He has the mentality of a child and is barely able to care for himself.”

Tennyson nodded, smiling. “So much for Werner Gerhardt. Speaking of patients, what’s the status of the traitor in Stuttgart?”

“Cerebral cancer, final stages. He won’t last a week.”

“So the Nachrichtendienst has but one functioning leader left,” said Tennyson. “Klaus Falkenheim.”

“It would appear so. However, he may have delegated authority to a younger man. He has soldiers available to him.”

“Merely available? From the children he protects? The
Verwünschte Kinder?
”

“Hardly. They’re sprinkled with a few idealists, but there’s no essential strength in their ranks. Falkenheim has sympathy for them, but he keeps those interests separate from the Nachrichtendienst.”

“Then where do the Nachrichtendienst soldiers come from?”