The Holcroft Covenant (63 page)

“Good. Such times cloud the mind; things are said that are rarely recalled with clarity.
That’s
when he mentioned the name ‘Tennyson.’ He told you he was on his way to Geneva, probably with a man named Tennyson. Can you convey that to Von Tiebolt?”

“Certainly. But will he accept it?”

“He has no choice. He wants you.”

“I want him.”

“Make the call. And remember, you’re close to hysterics; a panicked woman is unmanageable. Throw him off balance with your voice. Shout, whisper, stutter. Tell him you were to call your pilot at the seaplane base. There’s been a killing; it was swarming with police, and you’re frightened out of your mind. Can you do it?”

“Just listen,” said Althene, reaching for the phone.

The d’Accord switchboard connected her to the room of its very important guest Mr. John Tennyson.

And Yakov listened in admiration as Althene performed.

“You must get hold of yourself, Mrs. Holcroft,” said the stranger at the d’Accord.

“Then you
are
the Tennyson my son referred to?”

“Yes. I’m a friend. We met in Paris.”

“For the love of God, can you help me?”

“Of course. It would be a privilege.”

“Where’s Noel?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know.… He has business in Geneva with which I’m not involved.”

“You’re not?” A statement made in relief.

“Oh, no. We had dinner earlier—last night, actually—and he left to see his associates.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“I’m afraid he didn’t. You see, I’m on my way to Milan.… In Paris, I told Noel I’d stop over with him in Geneva and show him the city. He’s never been here, of course.”

“Can you meet with me, Mr. Tennyson?”

“Certainly. Where are you?”

“We must be careful. I can’t let you take risks.”

“There’s no risk for me, Mrs. Holcroft. I move freely in Geneva.”

“I don’t. That dreadful business at Médoc.”

“Come now, you’re overwrought. Whatever it was, I’m sure it doesn’t concern you. Where are you? Where can we meet?”

“The train station. The north entrance waiting room. In forty-five minutes. God bless you.”

She hung up abruptly. Yakov Ben-Gadíz smiled in approval.

“He’ll be very careful,” said the Israeli. “He’ll mount his defenses, and that will give us more time. I’ll head for the d’Accord. I’ll need every minute.”

Von Tiebolt replaced the receiver slowly. The possibilities of a trap were greater rather than fewer, he thought, but the evidence was not conclusive. He had purposely made the statement that Holcroft had never been to Geneva; it was a lie, and the old woman knew it. On the other hand, she sounded genuinely panicked, and a woman of her age in panic did not so much listen as wish to be listened to. It was conceivable that she had not
heard the remark, or, if she had, that she considered it subordinate to her own concerns.

Holcroft’s using the name “Tennyson”—if he had—was not out of character for the American. He was subject to quick emotional outbursts, often speaking without thinking. The news of Richard Holcroft’s death in New York could easily have put him in such an emotional state that the name “Tennyson” slipped out without his realizing it.

On the other hand, the American had displayed strengths where strengths had not been thought to exist. Giving the name to his mother contradicted the discipline he had developed. And further, Johann knew that he was dealing with a woman who was capable of obtaining false papers, who had disappeared in Lisbon. He would take extraordinary precautions. He would not be trapped by an old woman in panic—or by one who pretended to be in panic.

The telephone rang, breaking his concentration.

“Yes?”

It was the first deputy. They were still trying to locate the accurate address of the telephone number given the d’Accord by Mrs. Holcroft. A bureaucrat was on his way to the state telephone office to open a file. Von Tiebolt replied icily.

“By the time he finds it, it will be of no use to us. I’ve made contact with the woman. Send a policeman driving an official car to the d’Accord immediately. Tell him I’m a visitor of state who requires a personal courtesy. Have him in the lobby in fifteen minutes.” Von Tiebolt did not wait for a reply. He replaced the phone and went back to the table where there were two handguns. They had been broken down for cleaning; he would reassemble them quickly. They were two of the Tinamou’s favorite weapons.

If Althene Holcroft had the audacity to bait a trap, she would learn she was no match for the leader of Wolfsschanze. Her trap would snap back, crushing her in its teeth.

The Israeli stayed out of sight in an alleyway across from the d’Accord. On the hotel steps, Von Tiebolt was talking quietly with a police officer, giving him instructions.

When they had finished talking, the officer ran to his
car. The blond man walked to a black limousine at the curb and climbed in behind the wheel. Von Tiebolt wanted no chauffeur for the trip he was about to make.

Both cars drove off down the rue des Granges. Yakov waited until he could see neither, then, briefcase in hand, walked across the street to the d’Accord.

He approached the front desk, the picture of weary officialdom. He sighed as he spoke to the clerk. “Police examiners. I’ve been rousted from my bed to take additional scrapings from the dead man’s room. That Ellis fellow. The inspectors never have ideas until everyone they need is asleep. What’s the number?”

“Third floor. Room thirty-one,” said the clerk, grinning sympathetically. “There’s an officer on duty outside.”

“Thanks.” Ben-Gadíz walked to the elevator, pressing the button for the fifth floor. John Tennyson was registered in room 512. There was no time to indulge in games with a policeman on guard duty. He needed every minute—every second—he could get.

The man in the uniform of the Geneva police walked through the north entrance of the railroad station, his leather heels clicking against the stone. He approached the old woman seated at the far end of the first row of benches.

“Mrs. Althene Holcroft?”

“Yes?”

“Please come with me, madame.”

“May I ask why?”

“I’m to escort you to Mr. Tennyson.”

“Is that necessary?”

“It is a courtesy of the city of Geneva.”

The old woman got to her feet and accompanied the man in uniform. As they walked toward the double doors of the north entrance, four additional policemen emerged from the outside and took up positions in front of the doors. No one would pass by them until permission was granted.

Outside, on the platform, flanking a police car at the curb, were two more uniformed men. The one near the hood opened the door for the woman. She climbed in; her escort addressed his subordinates.

“As instructed, no private automobiles or taxis are to leave the terminal for a period of twenty minutes. Should
any attempt to do so, get the identifications and have the information radioed to my car.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If there are no incidents, the men may go back to their posts in twenty minutes.” The police officer got inside the car and started the engine.

“Where are we going?” asked Althene.

“To a guest house on the estate of the first deputy of Geneva. This Mr. Tennyson must be a very important man.”

“In many ways,” she replied.

Von Tiebolt waited behind the wheel of the black limousine. He was parked fifty yards from the ramp that led out of the station’s north entrance, the limousine’s motor idling. He watched as the police car drove out into the street and turned right, then waited until he saw the two police officers take up their positions.

He pulled out into the street. As planned, he would follow the police car at a discreet distance, keeping alert for signs of other automobiles showing interest in that vehicle. All contingencies had to be considered, including the possibility that somewhere on her person the old woman had concealed an electronic homing device that would send out signals attracting the carrion she employed.

The last obstacle to Code Wolfsschanze would be eliminated within the hour.

Yakov Ben-Gadíz stood in front of Von Tiebolt’s door. The “do not disturb” sign was posted. The Israeli knelt down and opened his briefcase. He took out an odd-shaped flashlight and snapped it on; the glow was a barely perceptible light green. He pointed the light at the bottom left of the door, worked across, and up, and over the top. He was looking for strands of thread or of human hair—tiny alarms that if removed told the occupant his room had been entered. The light identified two threads stretched below, then three vertically, and one above. Yakov removed a tiny pin recessed in the handle of the flashlight. Delicately, he touched the wood beside each thread; the pin markings were infinitesimal—unseen by the naked eye but picked up by the green light. He then knelt again and took a small metal cylinder from his briefcase. It was a highly sophisticated electronic lock-picking instrument
developed in the counterterrorist laboratories at Tel Aviv.

He placed the mouth of the cylinder over the lock and activated the tumbler probes. The lock sprung, and Yakov carefully slid the fingers of his left hand along the borders of the door, removing the threads. Slowly, he pushed the door open. He reached for his briefcase, stepped inside, and closed the door. There was a small table by the wall; he put the threads down carefully on it, weighting them with the cylinder, and again snapped on the flashlight.

He looked at his watch. Conservatively, he had no more than thirty minutes to deactivate whatever alarms Von Tiebolt had set and to find the
Sonnenkinder
list. The fact that threads had been planted in the door was a good sign. They were there for a reason.

He angled the beam of green light around the sitting room. There were two closets and the bedroom door, all closed. He eliminated the closets first. No threads, no bolted locks, nothing.

He approached the door to the bedroom and threw the beam along the edges. There were no threads, but there was something else. The wash of green light picked up the reflection of a tiny yellow light recessed between the door and the frame, approximately two feet above the floor. Ben-Gadíz knew immediately what he was looking at: a miniature photoelectric cell, making contact with another drilled into the wood of the door’s edging.

If the door was opened, the contact would be broken and the alarm triggered. It was as foolproof as modern technology allowed; there was no way to immobilize the device. Yakov had seen them before, tiny cells with built-in timers. Once implanted, they were there for the specific durations called for, rarely less than five hours. No one, including the person who set them, could neutralize them before the timers ran down.

Which meant that Johann von Tiebolt expected to break the contact if he wanted to enter the room. Emergencies might arise that required his tripping the alarm.

What kind of alarm was it? Sound had to be ruled out; any loud noise would draw attention to the room. Radio signals were a possibility, but signals had too limited a range.

No, the alarm itself had to release a deterrent within
the immediate vicinity of the protected area. A deterrent that would immobilize an intruder but could be defused by Von Tiebolt himself.

Electric shock was not dependable. Acid was uncontrollable; Von Tiebolt might sustain permanent injury and disfigurement. Was it a gas? A vapor?…

Toxin
. A vaporized poison. Toxic
fumes
. Powerful enough to render a trespasser unconscious. An oxygen mask would be protection against the vapor. If Von Tiebolt used one, he could enter the room at will.

Tear gas and Mace were not unknown in Yakov’s line of work. He returned to his briefcase, knelt down, and pulled out a gas mask with a small canister of oxygen. He put it on, inserted the mouthpiece, and went back to the door. He pushed the door open quickly, and stepped back.

A burst of vapor filled the door frame. It was suspended for several seconds and then evaporated rapidly, leaving the space as clear as if it had never appeared. Ben-Gadíz felt a minor stinging around his eyes. It was an irritant, not blinding, but Yakov knew that if inhaled, the chemicals that produced that stinging would inflame the lungs and cause his instant collapse. It was the proof he was looking for. The
Sonnenkinder
list was somewhere in that room.

He stepped through the doorway, past a tripod with a cylinder of gas attached to the top. To remove whatever traces might remain of the fumes, he opened a window; cold winter air rushed in, billowing the curtains.

Ben-Gadíz went back into the sitting room, picked up his briefcase, and returned to the bedroom to begin the search. Assuming that the list would be protected by a fire-resistant steel container of some sort, he took out a small metal scanner with a luminous dial. He started at the bed area and began working his way around the room.

The needle of the detector leaped forward in front of the clothes closet. The green light picked up the familiar tiny yellow dots in the door frame.

He had found the vault.

He opened the door; vapor burst forth, filling the closet as it had filled the space of the bedroom door. Only now it remained longer than before, the cloud denser. If the first alarm had malfunctioned, this one contained enough toxin to kill a man. On the floor of the closet was an overnight suitcase, its dark-brown leather soft and
expensive, but Yakov knew it was not an ordinary piece of luggage. There were no wrinkles on the front or back, as there were across the top and down the sides. The leather was reinforced with steel.

He checked for threads and markings with the green light; there were none. He lifted the suitcase to the bed, then pushed a second button on the flashlight. The green light was replaced with a sharp beam of yellowish white. He studied the two locks. They were different; doubtless each triggered a different alarm.

He removed a thin pick from his pocket and inserted it in the lock on the right, careful to keep his hand as far back as possible.

There was a rush of air; a long needle shot out from the left of the lock. Fluid oozed from the point, globules dripping to the carpet. Yakov took out a handkerchief, wiped the needle clean, and slowly, cautiously, pushed it back into its recess, using his pick to press it through the tiny orifice.