The Lie (29 page)

Jayson Fleming stared at his friend. “Except that now you’re telling me there’s really no such thing as evil. That should
certainly make me feel a lot better about what I’ve set in motion here, shouldn’t it?”

“Yes. It should.”

“Then why do I still feel like such a damnable, murdering shit?”

“Because you’ve got the crazy idea there’s redemption in just feeling that way.”

A
WANING, THREE-QUARTER MOON
edged past a long cluster of clouds and shone down on Wannsee.

In the surveillance room, Klaus Logefeld watched the television monitors and could all but feel the change of mood around
the conference table. From an air of impending calamity, the prevailing spirit seemed to have turned to one of steadily building
hope. Klaus saw it in the delegates’ faces and heard it in their words and voices when they spoke.

Then he glanced at his grandfather and was able to pick out something that might actually have passed for a smile.

I think they’re going to give it to us
, said the facsimile of a smile.

And I’ll believe it only when we have it in our hands
, thought Klaus.

Still, Klaus had already demonstrated his own hope, his own easing of tension, by removing the Dunsters’ handcuffs. But not
without first reminding them to please, please, not try anything foolish when things were beginning to go so well.

President James Dunster needed no such warning. His perceptions, always acute, had never been so finely tuned. He was well
aware of every positive indication being passed through the glowing monitors like the scent of some exciting perfume. He intended
to just sit quietly beside his wife, gaze at the television screen, and make no waves.

Maggie simply kept looking at the president with such naked hope and feeling that it tore his heart. She gripped his hand
and listened with growing impatience to the long-winded arguments, pomposities, and pure babble being produced by the various
speakers at the conference table.

“Why don’t they just shut up and vote?” she said after an especially lengthy harangue by the French foreign secretary. “Why
must they always talk so darn much?”

“Because it’s their profession. It’s what they do.”

“Even while you’re sitting here under a death threat?”

“They all have their agendas, Maggie.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“No more disgusting than my own agenda of just walking in here uninvited and unannounced.”

“That was different.”

“How?”

“
You
, at least, thought you were Jesus Christ.”

“Are you telling me I’m
not?”
Dunster said.

Maggie looked at him for a long moment. “Considering the small miracle you seem to be working here, I’m beginning to wonder.”

Making his own observations from within the conference room itself, Paulie Walters listened to the momentum growing in favor
of Klaus Logefeld’s grand plan for Africa and the world, and was not the least bit proud of how he was reacting. He seemed
to be experiencing less joy at the prospect of the president’s safe release than the anger and frustration he felt at the
thought of Klaus flying off in a few days, free and unpunished.

I should be better than this
, he thought.

How could he just let the sonofabitch get away with deliberately setting up his mother and father?

The answer to that was simple. He couldn’t.

More complex, of course, was how he would finally manage to do what had to be done and get on with his life.

He knew that when the time came, he would figure that one out too. As his father would have done if the situation
had been reversed. Or, for that matter, what his mother would have done as well.

They were that kind of family.

What about
vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord?

Always an imposing thought.

He
was evidently of a different
famiglia
entirely.

Kate Dinneson’s attention was focused more on Paulie and what she felt he was thinking than on the delegates’ speechifying.

There’s no way I’m going to let him get away with it
, he had declared in the woods early that evening, and the words themselves still frightened her.

Paulie met her gaze for a moment. Then he looked away, standing silent and still.

Kate had the sense of having seen him exactly this way before, and recalled it as having been at the freshly dug graves of
his parents.

I was the one who put them there
.

Still, he had cared and understood enough to grant her absolution. If he had not, Kate guessed she would now be dead. As Klaus
would soon be dead. There was no doubt about that in Kate’s mind. It was simply a question of Paulie deciding when, where,
and how.

When that was done, no one would be able to stop him. Unless Klaus could, she thought, as this new fear coursed through her.

With what appeared to be the rising acceptance of Klaus Logefeld’s agenda, Dr. Nicholas Vorelli was facing a problem of his
own.

Seated at the conference table no more than ten feet from Kate, he stared coldly into the television lights, seemed to listen
to whatever the other delegates were saying, offered appropriate remarks of his own when they were called for, and never for
a moment stopped considering how best to handle the quandary ahead.

His own worst-case scenario would, of course, be the
swift approval of Klaus’s treaty plan, an equally quick release of the Dunsters, and an instant end to any chance for his
fifty-million-dollar rescue arrangement.

In a more positive view, he hoped that the delegates would milk as much time and media coverage as possible from the situation
before voting themselves out of their starring role in the world spotlight.

That, in turn, would give him enough breathing space to sell those in command on the advantages of his own plan to shoot Klaus
and the old man, thereby sparing everyone the almost certain blackmail of any future bombing threats.

Earlier, Nicko had checked back with Major Dechen, and the security chief had already carried out his promise to pick up the
necessary parts for his pressure harness.

Now he just needed a bit of extra time, and he was confident he would get that.

If he failed to get it?

There would be other ways.

Somehow, there always were.

T
HEY ENTERED THE TUNNEL
at about four in the morning with Daniel Archer following his German contact through the camouflaged opening, down a short
flight of steps, and along a concrete-lined passage smelling of time, dampness, and other things.

Death was among the other things.

They each carried a battery-powered lantern, and Archer held one of the two automatics the German had brought, the one with
the silencer. The other piece was in his belt.

They walked without speaking until they reached a rusted metal door that marked the end of the tunnel. The German opened the
door and they went into a large, concrete-lined room filled with bunks, canned goods, and communications gear.

Hans put his lantern down on a bare wooden table surrounded by four chairs, and turned.

“Vorelli’s headquarters,” he said.

“Headquarters for what?”

“Who knows? But it’s stocked with enough electronic junk to tie in with half the world.”

Daniel Archer glanced around and believed him. He un-slung his canvas duffel and bag and set them down on the concrete floor.
Hans put down the garment bag he had been carrying and smiled at Archer.

“You see?” he said. “Coming in and working from down
here, you won’t even have to bother putting on your uniform.”

“What about when I leave?” asked Archer.

The German looked at him and Archer suddenly got a hint of the real reason the man was here.

“If we go out the way we came in,” Hans said, “you won’t need it even then. But put it on if it’ll make you feel better.”

Archer opened the garment bag, took off his clothes, and put on the gray uniform and shiny black shoes. With all the fireworks
that would be going on later, it was better to do it now. He didn’t bother asking Hans why he hadn’t brought a second uniform
for himself. He had probably expected to be wearing this one.

They started at once.

Hans now activated the miniature bugs and cameras the German’s friend, Bruno, had strategically placed throughout the villa.

A split-screen television monitor suddenly lit up, and Daniel Archer stared at four separate images. He saw the surveillance
and main conference rooms, the first-floor corridor, and the basement library and reference area. There were headsets for
the audio, but Archer had no interest in what was being said. At that moment all he cared about was the sight of those in
the surveillance room.

Here they are, he thought, and felt his life and theirs hanging by the same delicate thread.

The first thing that struck him was how they were positioned. Their placement in the room was so perfect for his needs that
he could not believe his good luck. Mainz and the old man were sitting together in front of the monitors, with the president
and his wife side by side against a wall that had to be at least fifteen feet away.

Two and two. And separate
.

Archer saw clearly that what he had hoped to do could actually be done. Not that it would be simple or certain. With explosives,
the size and placement of the charge was always tricky. Too much or too little, too close or too far away, and anything could
happen.

Still, to use the gas that Hans had brought as a possible backup would be even more dangerous, even harder to control with
all four of them in the same room.

So it would be only the C-4.

“Show me the rest of the layout,” he said to the German.

Hans went into what appeared to be an empty closet, and Archer saw him press a wooden panel that swung open.

They walked through the opening and were in the rear section of a cellar storeroom, which in turn led into a basement utility
area and then into a library and reference room. All were unoccupied. Although in certain places footsteps could be heard
overhead along with the faint murmur of voices.

Back in the electronics bunker, Archer reviewed the diagrams and blueprints he had studied on the flight coming over and decided
exactly where and how to place his charge. He took particular pains in measuring out the C-4, and he set the detonator and
remote according to a formula he had worked out himself and had used for years with good results.

In this, there were no second chances.

Hans watched, quiet and expressionless.

Finally, Daniel Archer sat down and looked at the German. His silencer-lengthened automatic lay on the table between them
where he had placed it earlier; it had not been touched since.

“When are you supposed to do it?” Archer asked. “Before or after I blow the charge?”

“Do what?”

“Shoot me.”

The German’s eyes widened. That was all. “What are you talking about?”

“Listen,” said Archer, “you have exactly thirty seconds to tell me what your orders are, who gave them to you, and who else
knows about this whole thing. If you don’t tell me, you’re dead.”

Hans never hesitated. “And if I
do
tell you?”

“Then you leave in one piece and you’re out of it. We’re both professionals. We don’t die for this crap. Right?”

“Sure,” said the German, and had the gun off the table and in his hand so fast that Archer found himself staring into the
muzzle almost before he was conscious of it happening.

“Nice move,” he said. “But the clip happens to be empty.”

Hans stared deep into Daniel Archer’s eyes. Then he took careful aim between them and squeezed the trigger.

There was only a faint metallic sound.

Hans quickly racked back the automatic’s slide. But instead of moving forward into firing position, it remained locked open.

At that moment Archer caught the German in the temple with the butt of his other automatic, and Hans went down.

Archer picked up the silenced piece, placed a single cartridge in the exposed breech, pressed the slide release, and aimed
the gun at Hans where he lay.

“OK,” he said. “You know the questions. Let’s try again.”

Hans rose slowly from the floor and settled into a chair. A trickle of blood ran down the side of his face and stained his
collar.

“You’re running out of time,” said Archer.

“Same deal as before? If I talk, I walk?”

“You’ve got it.”

Hans nodded. “I’m probably two removed from the prime source, so the best I can do is guess at who that would be.”

“Then make it a good guess.”

“I already told you. The American vice president.”

“And next to
him
?”

“The same man who hired you. Someone high up in the CIA.”

“Let’s hear a name.”

“Foxcraft.”

“Is that a guess too?”

“No,” said the German. “I had a tap going and heard it on a phone call.”

“Who did you have the tap on?”

“Someone in Berlin. He was using the code name Sam.”

“Anyone else who knew?”

“No.”

“What were your orders from Sam?”

“To help you as much as I could. To make sure it was done fast, right, and without messy complications.”

The German paused and looked at some distant point.

“And then?”

“To shoot you before you were able to shoot me.”

The German’s voice was quiet and he was still looking off somewhere. He was waiting for something, and Archer knew what it
was.

Daniel Archer rose, walked around the table to the man, and touched him on the shoulder. “You don’t have to worry, Hans. When
this is finished we’ll go out of here together.”

The German was silent. He nodded and did not turn. He was still nodding when the single bullet from the silenced automatic
made its soft, whooshing sound as it entered his head.