The Lie (31 page)

“You said you needed my help.”

“That was before I saw the car. I don’t know what I’ll find down there at this point.”

Kate slid out. “You’re breaking my heart, Nicko. Let’s go.

It took them exactly ten minutes to reach, enter, and traverse the tunnel. At the metal door of the bunker they were able
to hear the faint sound of radio voices.

Nicko put his eye to a keyhole and saw a man in a Wannsee guard’s uniform sitting at a table with an automatic
on it. Then he saw the lower torso and legs of another man lying on one of the bunks.

He let Kate look. “Do you know the man?” he whispered.

“No. But I’m pretty sure that’s Klaus on the bunk.”

Nicko waited another five minutes to see if anyone else became visible in the room. Then, counting on the radio to cover any
slight sound a key might make, he eased Bruno’s key into the lock and gently tried to turn it. The door was not locked.

“Stay about three paces behind me,” Nicko whispered to Kate, and pushed into the room.

Daniel Archer stared at the silenced automatic suddenly pointing at his head and did not make a move. Then, seeing Kate coming
in with another gun, he just shook his head in disgust.

“Terrific,” he said.

Kate and Nicko saw that the figure stretched out on the bunk was in fact Klaus Logefeld. They saw, too, that crude bandages
were wrapped across his chest and midsection and that he was unconscious. Kate stepped toward the table, picked up the pistol
lying there, and put it in her purse.

Then she nodded toward the bunk. “How is he?” she asked in English.

“Alive, ma’am,” said Archer. “But I don’t think for long.”

“Has he been conscious at all?”

“No, ma’am.”

Keeping an eye on Archer, Kate crossed over to the bunk and felt for the pulse in Klaus Logefeld’s carotid artery. It was
very faint and his breath made a rasping sound in his throat.

Archer watched and said nothing. Nicko was looking at a tarpaulin in a corner. He lifted it and stared at a dead man with
a bloody head. Turning to Archer, he let the covering fall. “You shot him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why?”

“For the best reason in the world.
He
was going to shoot
me
.”

Nicko sat down facing Archer. “Do you know who I am?”

“Yeah. You’re Dr. Nicholas Vorelli.”

“Who are
you
?”

“An American citizen. Daniel Archer.”

“Let me see your passport and wallet.”

Kate stood against a wall, her pistol leveled, as the exchange was made.

Nicko glanced briefly at Archer’s diplomatic passport and other ID. “Who sent you?”

“No one. I’m here as a private citizen.”

“To do what? Blow up your president and his wife?”

“No, sir. To try to rescue them.”

“I would never have guessed it.” Nicko’s voice was dry ice.

Archer was silent.

“Better understand this, Mr. Archer,” said Nicko. “There are just two things keeping you alive: my need for answers, and the
chance you might be able to do me some good. So the moment I feel you’re lying to me, I’m putting a bullet in your head. Is
that clear enough?”

“Yes, sir,” said Archer.

“Then suppose we begin again. Are you CIA?”

“No, sir. But I’ve done special jobs for the Company.”

“And this was one of them?”

Archer nodded, his face washed clean of all expression.

“Who was your contact?”

“Someone using the code name of Sam. No one I knew.”

“And your orders?”

The former soldier breathed deeply. “To waste everyone in the surveillance room.”

“Including the president?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you had no idea where the orders originated?”

“No, sir.” Then, seeing the doubt on Nicko’s face: “That’s pretty standard, sir. It’s how they protect themselves.”

Nicko and Kate exchanged glances.

“Who else knew about your mission?” asked Nicko.

“Sam had said no one. When I got here I found he’d given my German contact orders to pop me when it was done.”

“That’s your German contact under the tarp?”

“Yes, sir.”

No one spoke. There was just the sound of Klaus Logefeld’s breathing beneath the murmur of a twenty-four-hour news program.
Listening, Kate learned that the president and his wife were currently undergoing surgery.

“For the record,” said Daniel Archer, “I never did try to carry out Sam’s orders. My own plan was to just knock out Mainz
and the old man, save the Dunsters, and be a goddamn hero. I had the charge and its placement carefully figured. But something
went wrong and all hell broke loose.”

“What went wrong,” said Nicko, “was that the professor had explosives of his own cached very close to where you set off yours.”

Archer sat there, unbending. “I thought it might be something like that. But you say it like you’re sure.”

“I am sure. It was reported to me about a week ago.” “And you did nothing about it?”

“I have my own agenda, Mr. Archer.” Nicko considered the man sitting so straight and controlled only minutes from probable
death and was impressed. “How did you know about this tunnel and bunker?”

“Hans, my German contact, knew. He was your man Bruno’s friend and was covering his back the night Bruno took you down here.”

Nicko looked at Kate. “Any more questions for Mr. Archer?”

Kate edged away from the wall. “Just out of curiosity, Mr. Archer. Why weren’t you at least a hundred kilometers from this
place before we ever showed up?”

“Because I’ve been hoping Mainz might come out of it long enough to explain what went wrong.” Archer looked accusingly
at the still figure on the bunk. “And now it looks like he’s never going to.”

Kate followed Daniel Archer’s glance, but she found nothing different in that direction. Then she realized that the faint,
rasping sound of Klaus Logefeld’s breathing had stopped.

Good-bye, Klaus
, she thought.

“So you made a mistake, Mr. Archer,” said Nicko.

“I’ve made them before, sir.”

“Yes, but I’m afraid this one promises to be fatal.”

The room fell silent.

“Unless…” Nicko said slowly, and paused. “Unless there might still be a way for you to do us all a lot more good alive than
dead.”

B
Y
1:00
A.M.
W
ASHINGTON TIME
, the deputy director of the CIA felt he had received just about all the officially sanctioned news he was going to get concerning
the explosion at Wannsee.

He knew that Jimmy and Maggie Dunster were alive but critically injured, that Major Schadt was dead, and that Professor Mainz
had somehow managed to disappear without a trace.

All this information had come to Harris at home via phone calls from Wannsee, from the White House, and from his own office
in Langley, Virginia. Scattered fragments had even come from Jayson Fleming himself, and the pro tempore president had sounded
increasingly tense with each call.

I’d better get over to him
, thought Ken Harris.

But there were other things for the deputy director to learn about and deal with before he headed back to the Oval Office.

Using the secure phone he kept in a wall safe in his study, Harris called a private number in a suburb about twenty miles
north of Berlin.

A man’s voice answered in German.

“Foxcraft here,” said the deputy director, also in German. “What have you got for me, Sam?”

“Nothing you don’t already know,” he said.

“You haven’t heard from Hans?”

“I wasn’t supposed to hear from him. Not unless there was some sort of problem.”

“So we can assume he took care of what he had to do?”

“Yes, sir.”

The deputy director hung up slowly.

So much for Danny Archer.

Unfortunately, before dying, Archer had failed to carry out his assignment at Wannsee with his usual efficiency. So that with
it all, Jimmy Dunster was still alive.

The deputy director allowed himself a few moments to think it through. Then he hit the buttons on a second direct call to
the Berlin area.

This time it was a woman who answered.

“Do you know who this is, Anna?” said Harris, speaking his well-practiced German.

“How could I not?” The answer was instant, without hesitation. “One doesn’t forget dear old friends, Walter.”

“You’re very kind,” the deputy director said. “But it’s been so long since we’ve spoken.”

“Not that long. How have you been?”

“Reasonably well,” said Harris, going through the prescribed litany with the skill of a veteran field agent. “And you?”

“Never better.”

“Delighted to hear that. Especially since I’m very much in need of some of your more exceptional talents.”

There was an easy, very female laugh at the other end.

“You do know how to talk to a woman, Walter. Not many men really do. Now exactly when would you like to make use of these
talents?”

“Immediately. Or at least as soon as possible.”

“No problem. Just fill me in.”

“This one is not that simple, Anna. Actually, you’ll be dealing with a very close and very important friend of mine. He’s
been badly hurt and right now is in severe pain.” Harris paused and could see her face in front of him, that mobile, mocking,
I-know-the-cost-of-every-bargain survivor’s face. “Perhaps you’ve heard something about the unfortunate incident in which
he was a victim.”

The line was silent for several beats.

“You mean the one that just happened during the night?” she said.

“Exactly.”

“Yes, I’ve heard,” said Anna. “It was all too distressing. What would you like me to do for your friend?”

“What you do best. The thing so few women have your talent for doing. I’d like you to ease the poor man’s pain. One hates
to see one’s friends having to suffer.”

Anna took her time in answering. “Are we talking easing your friend’s pain,” she finally said, “or eliminating it permanently?”

“Eliminating it permanently would be so much kinder. If you think that’s possible.”

“Everything is possible, Walter. You know that. It’s just a matter of difficulty and cost.”

“If you can handle the difficulty, I can deal with the cost.”

“We’re talking top-of-the-line here, dear friend.”

“I understand.”

“Lovely. Now can we be a bit more specific?”

“How about doubling your usual honorarium?”

“How about quadrupling it?”

Ken Harris laughed. “You’re all heart, Anna. But why not? Good friends deserve the best. And there’s no one better than you.”

“Deposited in advance at the usual dead drop,” she said.

“You’ve never asked for
that
before.”

“You’ve never had so important and difficult to reach a friend before.”

The deputy director sighed. “The cash will be at the drop within the hour. Good luck.”

The White House had enough lights burning at 1:40
A.M.
for either a national celebration or a state funeral. Sometimes it was hard to tell one from the other, thought Harris, leaving
his limousine. And tonight’s efforts could still end up going either way.

The pro tempore president was waiting for him in a small family parlor on the second floor. Entering the room, Harris saw
that his friend seemed to have finally settled into his more controlled mode.

“I’ve just spoken with the head of the hospital,” Fleming
told Harris. “Jimmy and Maggie are still in surgery. If Jimmy gets through that, they’re giving him a better than even chance
of making it all the way.”

“So how does that make you feel?” the deputy director asked. “Worried or relieved?”

“A little of both. At least it’s out of our hands.”

“You’d rather leave it to God?”

“And the German surgeons.” Fleming sat down facing his friend. “Either way, it requires no further action from us.”

“And you like that?”

“I can live with it.”

“Well, I can’t,” said Ken Harris.

The vice president looked at him. “What’s your other choice?”

“Making sure Jimmy doesn’t leave that hospital alive.” “What are you telling me? That you’ve arranged for that too?”

“Yes.”

It took visible effort, but Fleming’s control held. “I hope you’ve arranged it more effectively than you did the other.”

Harris shrugged. “We can only do what we can.”

“You don’t think you can reach a point where it might be better to just do nothing and wait things out?”

“I really can’t see anything better for us in Jimmy Dunster coming home alive. Remember what the great Machiavelli, in his
infinite political wisdom, once said?” asked the deputy director of the CIA. “
He who establishes a dictatorship and does not kill Brutus… or he who founds a republic and does not kill the sons of Brutus,
will only reign a short time
.”

A bitter, cynically wise quote, thought Jayson Fleming. But of course Jimmy Dunster was not even near to being Brutus, no
meager American vice president had yet to turn himself into anything resembling a dictator, and the greatest republic in history
had been founded more than two hundred years ago and was still going strong.

I
T’S JUST THE TWO OF US NOW
, thought Paulie Walters.

Or so it seemed to him.

The other person was no less than the president of the United States, currently an unconscious, gray-faced conduit for assorted
plastic tubes carrying fluids in and out of his body.

Paulie and Jimmy Dunster were not alone, of course. A continuing stream of doctors and nurses eddied about them, hovering
and whispering as they consulted charts as well as each other. Stationed in the corridor outside the recovery room was an
approximation of the same contingent of American Secret Service agents and German security guards that had so thoroughly failed
to protect the president less than thirteen hours earlier.

Along with me
, thought Paulie, still unable to let go of his own portion of the blame for the entire catastrophe.