Authors: Julian Jay Savarin
“You don’t have to…”
“I know I don’t have to. It’s an offer you’re not going to refuse.”
Müller said nothing to that.
“What were the names of those school friends?” he asked the Goth.
“Roger Montville, and Jean-Marc Lavaliere.”
Müller repeated the names to himself, then nodded, as if in confirmation of something. “That was excellent investigative work, Hedi. Thank you.”
She swivelled the chair round to look at him. “No problem. Is there anything else you need? I’ve got to get back to my office. I’m upgrading one of our machines. Should get it done before the end of the day.”
“No. Nothing else for now. And thanks again.”
She gave him a warm smile, then turned back to the machine.
“I’ll keep working on the stuff in here, of course,” she continued as she began to shut it down.
“Of course.”
“And I can fly my jet?” She pointed to the throttle and the joystick.
“That was the deal.”
The computer gave a soft click, and shut down.
“That’s it,” the Goth said, rising to her feet. “Better get back before
Kommissar
Spyros sends out a search party.”
“As ever, we’ll defend you,” Pappenheim said.
“Then he hasn’t a chance.” Hedi Meyer looked at Carey Bloomfield, startling blue eyes hiding everything. “Nice working with you again, Colonel.”
“You too,” Carey Bloomfield said.
“Sirs,” the Goth said to Müller and Pappenheim, and went out.
Carey Bloomfield looked as the door sighed itself shut. “Now why did that sound like a challenge?”
“She’s just being playful,” Pappenheim said. “I’ll take a leaf out of the Goth’s book and leave you children alone. You have plenty to discuss. And…”
“And you need your smoke,” Carey Bloomfield finished for him.
“And I do need my smoke. And you, sir, Boss?” Pappenheim went on to Müller. “As you’re going to Grenoble, am I supposed to know?”
“For the moment, no.”
“Fine. I’ll talk to a French colleague down there. He’s very helpful. Keep unwanted people off your back.”
Carey Bloomfield looked at Pappenheim in wonder. “Pappi, if I wanted to go to Vladivostok, would you have a contact there too?”
“Take a little time, but I could probably arrange it. Might not be strictly legal, though. Hard to tell these days.”
“Pappi, with your kind of network, you could probably run a not-strictly-legal organisation yourself.”
“Why do you think I’m a policeman? It’s to avoid the temptation.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“
Au ‘voir
, children,” Pappenheim said. “Have fun.“
“
French?”
Müller said.
“You’re going to France,” Pappenheim responded, as if that explained it all. He went to the door, and paused. “I’d disable the green light, if I were you. I’ll keep in touch.”
Müller nodded. “Alright.”
“What does he mean ‘green light’?” Carey Bloomfield asked as the door shut once more.
“The one on the keypad outside. When it’s on, it lets people know someone’s inside.”
“People like Kaltendorf.”
“People like Kaltendorf,” Müller confirmed, as he went over to a panel near the door, to disable the warning light.
“There’s a needle going on,” she said as he returned.
“A needle?”
“Well, there’s Miss Hawk Eyes…”
“Berger.”
“Berger. She…”
“Does not like you. You think.”
“I know,” Carey Bloomfield corrected.
“Then there’s that partner of hers…”
“Reimer.”
“That’s him. He called me a CIA princess…are you smiling, Müller?”
“He called you that? To your face?”
“Not to my face. When Pappi and I came back, Pappi stopped by their office. They were going on about Reimer’s girlfriend, I think…”
“They’re always going on about Reimer’s girlfriend. It’s a standing joke around here.”
“Well, as we left, he said something like – ‘what’s the CIA princess doing here?’. He thought I hadn’t heard.”
Müller was still smiling. “It’s territorial. They’re afraid you might lead me astray.”
“Hah!” She paused. “Well, Müller? Pappi’s given me the background to your excitements in May. Do I get the details?”
“You get the details. How much did he give you?”
“Your glass palace was being bugged,” she began, “by people who were supposedly official. Aunt Isolde’s long-lost husband – the British officer - returned from the dead after thirty or so years. Only he was doing things so secret, he played dead, and comes back with a genetic poison that accidentally infected him when he was prowling about in some laboratory, somewhere in the Middle East. The people in the darkness that you’ve been hunting down sent a hitman to get both of you. The hitman failed, and got himself killed for his pains – by them, not you. Greville, Aunt Isolde’s long-lost, is still here. The hitman turned out to have been his own secret, adopted son, who didn’t know it was Greville who had paid for his upkeep since boyhood. How am I doing?”
“You’re doing very well. Go on.”
“You took Greville to the Eifel, suckering the hitman to follow. You ended up following
him
. In unfamiliar territory, he blundered onto the Nürburgring race track, which is where he ended up being splashed by his own controllers. They tried again, failed again. The two they sent this time, were part of the group who were eavesdropping on this place. One dead, one captured. Your nemesis group bring down the police chopper that was taking the live one back to Berlin. All dead, including the police crew and escort.”
She paused once more.
“You discover that your father left some highly sensitive material for you. Pappi didn’t say what; but the way he said what he did tell me, was enough to make me understand that your father was a very brave man. He worked undercover, out there in the east. He really was a spy, and you never suspected. It’s also looking more and more that Rachko told you the truth last winter, on Rügen; and that your digging is bringing a lot of nasty things into the daylight. I include people in that. The Grenoble mystery about the crash site that the Goth just found, all adds to it. They tried to kill Pappi, and today they sent one of their bastards to try and take me out. That’s what I know.”
“Which is fairly comprehensive,” Müller said. “I’ll give you the rest, then we’ll continue the hunt.”
“Grenoble?”
“Kreuzberg, then Baden-Württemberg, then Grenoble.”
“I always like to travel.”
“Perhaps you should reconsider. Being around me - as you have yourself seen to day - is becoming very dangerous.”
“Are you kidding? These toads came at me today. It’s personal now. I’m mad, and I’m going to get even.”
Müller went to the cabinet which held the sensitive information, and paused. “Pappi and I wondered how come they knew so quickly, that you were here.”
“It didn’t come from my side of the ocean,” Carey Bloomfield said. “I’ve told no one I was coming to Europe.”
“No one back at the Pentagon, or wherever it is you’ve got your office?”
“No one,” she repeated. “And don’t look at me like that, Müller.”
“Like what?”
“Like you don’t believe me.”
Müller worked his way around the comment. “Even if you’ve told no one…
someone
knows.”
“Well, I’ve no idea how that person found out. I’ve got my phone. But no one’s been in touch.”
“Not even personal friends?”
“Not even.”
“The kind of people we’re dealing with would have access to passenger lists…”
“They’d still first have to know I’d be coming over…”
“Not if they were doing a trawl, just in case.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“No.”
“So what have we got?” she asked.
“Betrayal…somewhere.”
“Great. So now my own people are suspect?”
“I’m not saying that.”
“No.
I
am. Damn it. Who would do this?”
“Perhaps,” Müller began, tapping in the code on the drawer keypad, “you should see the rest. Make the picture a little clearer. Perhaps.” He paused again. “I may be quite mad showing this to you.”
“You still don’t trust me?”
“It isn’t a question of trust anymore. It a question of survival. Mine…and now yours. Their attempt to kill you, was to get at me. And even though they have no real idea of the explosive potential of the information we now have in this cabinet, they are certainly beginning to suspect that I know rather too much for their own safety. They are now seeing that I am meddling in areas where only specific knowledge would take me. However, if they really did know how far I’ve got… ” Müller let his words fade and gave the cabinet a brief pat. “Only Pappi, Greville, and I know the full, detonating force of what is in there. Kaltendorf has no inkling. Now that you are here, they will assume that I may have passed some knowledge to you…”
“Hung for a sheep, as well as a lamb.”
“Precisely.”
“Hey, I’m up to my neck. How much higher can the water go?”
Müller pulled open the deep drawer and took out a brown briefcase, well-used, but in virtually pristine condition. It looked like a version of a doctor’s bag.
“You judge,” he said, as Carey Bloomfield stared at it. “My father left this for me with Aunt Isolde, when I was still a boy. The first time I knew of it, was last May. Something Greville said made me ask Aunt Isolde. She had been instructed to give it to me only if I asked.”
“Meaning you be already looking.”
Müller nodded as he took the briefcase to the table. “He gave it to her before he and my mother took that flight they were never to finish. They each wrote a letter to me. Both letters, in their own way, were goodbye notes. But my father’s also carried some terrible information about what the people we are up against, are planning. The individuals involved cover a wide spectrum and in a few cases, different nationalities.” The corners of his mouth turned down briefly. “You remember Neubauer.”
She nodded. “That police director who was supposedly a pal of Kaltendorf’s. He saw your parents the day before their last flight. The one that was shot by his own driver.”
Müller nodded. “He was just one of the unexpected. Another person who regularly came to our house when I was a boy, was a bishop…”
“You’re kidding.”
“If you’re planning something like this, you need to contaminate what passes for the establishment. Think of the walks of life that make up the establishment of any nation, and you’ll have an idea. They call themselves The Bretheren – spelt exactly as it sounds – but they know themselves more colloquially as
The Semper
…”
“‘Always’,” Carey Bloomfield remarked softly.
“They’re saying they’ll always be around.”
“An infection that won’t go away.”
Müller snapped the catches on the briefcase, and prised it open as if working at the jaws of an animal.
“All in there,” he said to her. “Help yourself.”
“Don’t you have personal things among…”
“I’ve had time to adjust to it. Look at whatever you want.”
She gave him an uncertain look, then reached into the case with a hesitant hand. She took out some envelopes, clearly holding photographs. Then some files, and unbound documents.
She picked up a letter. “No,” she remarked softly. “That’s to you.” She put it down, and picked up another. “That’s to you too.” Again, she put it down without reading it.
She picked up one of the envelopes, and gently shook the photographs out onto the table. She gasped when she saw the first. It was a photograph that had shocked Müller when he had first seen it in May.
“Your father!” she exclaimed in a voice barely above a whisper. “You look like him.” She stared at the man in the uniform of a colonel of police in the DDR. “What a handsome man. Even though I’ve seen the one in your apartment, this gives him an extra…”
“It’s the uniform. Aren’t all women supposed to like a man in uniform?”
“Speaking as someone who wears a uniform, and who has a father who wore one…it’s more like what takes your fancy. I can show you two men in the same uniform, and one will look like a toad.” She studied the photograph closely. “But not this one.”