The Aquitaine Progression (47 page)

“I know the man!” whispered Ilse Fishbein. “He was a field marshal, a brilliant
General
!”

“Who is he?” asked the Navy lawyer, then instantly shrugging, dispensing with the question of identity as irrelevant. “Never mind. Just tell me why you think he’s the right man, this field marshal.”

“He is greatly respected, although not everyone agrees with him. He was one of the
grossmächtigen
young commanders, once decorated by my father himself for his brilliance!”

“But would anyone in the American military establishment know him?”

“
Mein Gott!
He worked for the Allies in Berlin and Vienna after the war!”

“Yes?”

“And at SHAPE Headquarters in Brussels!”

Yes, thought Connal, we’re talking about the same man
. “Fine,” said Fitzpatrick casually but seriously. “Don’t bother giving me his name. It doesn’t matter, and I probably wouldn’t know it anyway. Can you reach him quickly?”

“In minutes! He’s here in Bonn.”

“Splendid. I should catch the plane back to Milwaukee by tomorrow noon.”

“You will come to his house and he will dictate what you need to his secretary.”

“I’m sorry I can’t do that. The deposition must be countersigned by a notary. I understand you have the same rules over here—and why not, you invented them—and the Schlosspark Hotel has both typing and notary services. Say this evening, or perhaps early in the morning? I should be more than happy to send a taxi for your friend. I don’t want this to cost him a pfennig. Any expenses he incurs my firm will be happy to repay.”

Ilse Fishbein giggled—a slightly hysterical giggle. “You do not know my friend,
mein Herr
.”

“I’m sure we’ll get along. Now, how about lunch?”

“I have to go to the toilet,” said the German woman, her eyes glass orbs again. As she rose, Connal rising with her, she whispered, “
Mein Gott! Zwei Millionen Dollar!
”

“He does not even care to know your
name
!” cried Ilse Fishbein into the phone. “He’s from a place called Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and is offering me two
million dollars American
!”

“He did not ask who I was?”

“He said it didn’t matter! He probably wouldn’t know you, in any event. Can you imagine? He offered to send a taxi for you! He said you should not spend a penny!”

“It’s true Göring was excessively generous during the last weeks,” mused Leifhelm. “Of course, he was more often drugged than not, and those who supplied him with narcotics, which were difficult to obtain, were rewarded with the whereabouts of priceless art treasures. The one who later smuggled him the poisoned suppositories still lives like a Roman emperor in Luxembourg.”

“So you see, it’s true! Göring
did
these things!”

“Rarely knowing what he was doing, however,” agreed the general reluctantly. “This is really most unusual and very inconvenient, Ilse. Did this man show you any documents, any proof of his assignment?”

“
Naturally!
” lied Fishbein, close to panic, picking remembered words out of the air. “There was a formal page of legal statements and a … 
deposition
—all to be handled by the courts confidentially! In
private
! You see, there is a question of taxes, which would not be paid if the estate was confiscated—”

“I’ve heard it all before, Ilse,” Leifhelm broke in wearily. “There are no statutes for so-called war criminals and expatriated funds. So the hypocrites choke on their hypocritical rules the instant they cost money, and abandon them.”

“You are always so perceptive, my general, and I have always been so loyal. I’ve never refused you a single request whether it was professional in nature or far more intimate.
Please
. Two million American! It will take but ten or fifteen minutes!”

“You’ve been like a good niece, I can’t deny it, Ilse. And there is no way anyone could know about you in other matters.… Very well, this evening then. I’m dining at the Steigenberger
at nine o’clock. I’ll stop at the Schlosspark at eight-fifteen or thereabouts. You can buy me a gift with your—shall we say—ill-conceived new riches.”

“I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

“My driver will accompany me.”

“
Ach
, bring twenty men!”

“He’s worth twenty-five,” Leifhelm said.

Fitzpatrick sat in the chair in the small conference room on the second floor of the hotel and examined the gun, the manual of instructions on his lap. He tried to match what the clerk had told him to the diagrams and instructions, and was satisfied that he knew enough. There were basic similarities to the standard Navy issue Colt .45, the only handgun he was familiar with, and the technical information was extraneous to his needs. The weapon he had purchased was a Heckler & Koch PGS auto pistol, about six inches long, its caliber nine millimeters, and with a nine-shell magazine clip. The instructions emphasized such points as “polygonal rifling” and “sliding roller lock functions”; he let the manual slip to the floor, and practiced removing the clip and slapping it back into place. He could load the weapon, aim it and fire it; those were all that was necessary and he trusted the last would
not
be necessary.

He glanced at his watch; it was almost eight o’clock. He shoved the automatic into his belt, reached down for the instructions and stood up, looking around the room, mentally checking off the movements and the locations he had designated for himself. As he had expected, the Fishbein woman had told him Leifhelm would be accompanied by someone, a “driver” in this case, and it could be assumed the man had other functions. If so, he would have no chance to perform them.

The room—one of twenty-odd conference rooms in the hotel—that he had reserved under the name of a fictitious company was not large, but there were structural arrangements that could be put to advantage. The usual rectangular table was in the center, three chairs on each side and two at the ends, one with a telephone. There were additional chairs against the walls for stenographers and observers—all this was normal. However, in the center of the left wall was a doorway that led to a very small room apparently used for private conversations. Inside was another telephone, which when off the
hook caused a button on the first telephone on the conference table to light up; confidentiality had its limits in Bonn. The hallway door opened onto a small foyer, thus prohibiting those entering from scanning the room while standing in the corridor.

Connal folded the Heckler & Koch instructions, put them in his jacket pocket, and walked over to the table to survey his set pieces. He had gone to an office-supply store and purchased the appropriate items. On the far end of the table by the telephone—which was placed perpendicular to the edge, the buttons in clear view—were several file folders next to an open briefcase (from a distance its dark plastic looked like expensive leather). Scattered about were papers, pencils and a yellow legal pad, the top pages looped over. The setting was familiar to anyone who had ever had an appointment with an attorney, said learned counsel having put his astute observations down on paper prior to the conference.

Fitzpatrick retraced his steps to the chair, moved it forward several feet, and crossed to the door of the small side room. He had turned on the lights—two table lamps flanking a short couch; he went to the one above the telephone and turned it off. He then walked back to the open door and stood between it and the wall, peering through the narrow vertical space broken up by upper and lower hinges. He had a clear view of the foyer’s entrance; three people would pass into the conference room and he would come out.

There was a knock on the hallway door—the rapid, impatient tapping of an heiress unable to control herself. He had told the Fishbein woman the location of the room, but nothing else. No name or number, and in her anxiety she had not asked about either. Fitzpatrick went to the telephone table in the small room, lifted the phone out of its cradle and placed it on its side. He returned to his position behind the door, angling himself so as to look through the crack, his body in the shadows. He took the pistol from his belt, held it in front of him and shouted in a friendly voice, loud enough to be heard outside in the hotel corridor. “
Bitte, kommen Sie herein! Die Türe ist offen. Ich telefoniere gerade!
”

The sound of the door as it opened preceded Ilse Fishbein as she walked rapidly into the room, her eyes directed at the conference table. She was followed by Erich Leifhelm, who glanced about and then turned slightly, nodding his head. A third man in the uniform of a chauffeur came into view, his
hand in the pocket of his black jacket. Connal then heard the second sound he needed to hear. The hallway door was slammed shut.

He yanked back the small door and quickly stepped around it, the gun extended, aimed directly at the chauffeur.

“
You!
” he cried in German. “Take your hand out of your pocket!
Slowly!
” The woman gasped, then opened her mouth to scream. Fitzpatrick interrupted harshly. “Be
quiet
! As your friend will tell you, I haven’t anything to lose. I can kill the three of you and be out of the country in an hour, leaving the police to look for a Mr. Parnell who doesn’t exist.”

The chauffeur, the muscles of his jaw rippling, removed his hand from his pocket, his fingers rigid. Leifhelm stared in anger and fear at Connal’s gun, his face no longer ashen but flushed. “You
dare
?”

“I dare, Field Marshal,” said Fitzpatrick. “Just as you dared forty years ago to rape a young kid and make damned sure that she and her whole family never walked out of the camps. You bet your ass I dare, and if I were you, I wouldn’t give me the slightest cause to be any angrier than I am.” Connal spoke to the woman. “
You
. Inside that briefcase on the table are eight strands of rope. Start with the driver. Bind his hands and feet; I’ll tell you how. Now!
Quickly!
”

Four minutes later the chauffeur and Leifhelm sat in two conference chairs, their ankles and wrists bound, the driver’s weapon removed from his pocket. Connal checked the ropes, the knots having been tied under his instructions. Everything was secure; the more one writhed, the tighter the knots would become. He ordered the panicked Fishbein woman into a third chair; he lashed her hands to the arms and her feet to the legs.

Rising, Connal picked up the automatic from the table and approached Leifhelm, who was sitting in the chair next to the lighted telephone. “Now,” he said, the gun pointed at the German’s head. “As soon as I hang up the phone in the other room we’re going to make a call from here.” He walked quickly into the small side room, hung up the telephone, and returned. He sat down next to the bound Leifhelm and took a scrap of paper out of the open briefcase. On it was written the phone number of the general’s estate on the Rhine beyond Bad Godesberg.

“What do you think you’ll accomplish?” asked Leifhelm.

“Trade-off,” replied Fitzpatrick, the barrel of the gun pressed against the German’s temple. “You for Converse.”

“
Mein Gott!
” whispered Ilse Fishbein as the chauffeur writhed, his hands straining against the ropes, which were now biting into his wrists.

“You believe anyone will listen to you, much less carry out your orders?”

“They will if they want to see you alive again. You know I’m right, General. This gun isn’t so loud—I made sure of that. I can turn on the radio and kill you and be on a plane out of Germany before you’re found. This room is reserved for the night with instructions that we’re not to be disturbed for any reason whatsoever.” Connal shifted the weapon to his left hand, picked up the telephone, and dialed the number written on the scrap of paper.

“Guten Tag. Hier bei General Leifhelm.”

“Put someone in authority on this phone,” said the Navy lawyer in perfect German. “I have a gun less than a foot away from General Leifhelm’s head and I’ll kill him right now unless you do as I say.”

There were muffled shouts over the line as a hand was held against the mouthpiece. In seconds a crisp British accent was speaking slowly, deliberately in English.

“Who is this and what do you want?”

“Well, what do you know? This sounds like Major Philip Dunstone—that
was
the name, wasn’t it? You don’t sound half so friendly as you did last night.”

“Don’t do anything rash, Commander. You’ll regret it.”

“And don’t you do anything stupid, or Leifhelm will regret it sooner—that is, until he can’t regret anything any longer. You’ve got one hour to get Converse to the airport and inside the Lufthansa security gate. He has a reservation on the ten o’clock flight to Washington, D.C., by way of Frankfurt. I’ve made arrangements. I’ll be calling a number in a room where he’ll be taken and I’ll expect to talk with him. After I do, I’ll leave here and call you on another phone, telling you where your employer is. Just get Converse to that security gate. One hour, Major!” Fitzpatrick shoved the phone in front of Leifhelm’s face, and pressed the barrel of the gun into the German’s temple.

“Do as he says,” said the General, choking on the words.

The minutes went by slowly, stretching into a quarter of an hour, then thirty, the silence finally broken by Leifhelm.
“So you found her,” he said, gesturing his head at Ilse Fishbein, who trembled as tears streaked down her full cheeks.

“Just as we found out about Munich forty years ago, and a hell of a lot of other things. You’re all on your way to that great big war room in the sky, Field Marshal, so don’t worry about whether I’ll go back on my word to your English butler. I wouldn’t miss seeing you bastards paraded for everyone to see what you really are. People like you give the military everywhere a goddamned rotten name.”

There was a slight commotion from the hallway beyond the door. Connal looked up, raising the gun and holding it directly at Leifhelm’s head.

“
Was ist?
” said the German, shrugging.

“Keine Bewegung!”

From the hotel corridor came the strains of a melody sung by several male voices more off key than on. Another conference in one of the other rooms had broken up, obviously as much from the excessive intake of alcohol as from the completion of a business agenda. Raucous laughter pierced a refrain as harmony was unsuccessfully attempted. Fitzpatrick relaxed, lowering the automatic; no one on the outside knew the name or number of the room.