The Holcroft Covenant: A Novel by Robert Ludlum
“That man in New York? Miles?”
“Among other things. I’ll explain when I see you again. There’s a taxi on the corner.”
“What will you do now? I doubt there are planes at this hour.”
“Then I’ll wait at the airport. I don’t want to be isolated in a hotel room.” Kessler stopped the car; Holcroft reached for the door. “Thank you, Erich. And I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, my friend Noel. Call me.”
The blond-haired man sat rigidly behind the desk in Kessler’s library. His eyes were furious, his voice strained and intense as he spoke.
“Tell me again. Every word. Leave out nothing.”
“What’s the point?” replied Kessler from across the room. “We’ve gone over it ten times. I’ve remembered everything.”
“Then we shall go over it ten more times!” shouted Johann von Tiebolt. “Thirty times, forty times! Who was he? Where did he come from? Who were the two men in Montereau? They’re linked; where did all three come from?”
“We don’t know,” said the scholar. “There’s no way to tell.”
“But there is! Don’t you see? The answer’s in what that man said to Holcroft in the alley. I’m certain of it. I’ve heard the words before. It’s there!”
“For God’s sake, you had the man.” Kessler spoke firmly. “If you couldn’t learn anything from him, what makes you think we can from anything Holcroft said? You should have broken him.”
“He wouldn’t break; he was too far gone for drugs.”
“So you put a wire to his throat and threw him to the American. Madness!”
“Not madness,” said Tennyson. “Consistency. Holcroft must be convinced that Wolfsschanze is everywhere. Prodding, threatening, protecting.… Let’s go back to what was said. According to Holcroft, the man wasn’t afraid to die. What was it? ‘… I am prepared. We are all prepared. We will stop you. We will stop Geneva. Kill me and another will take my place; kill him, another his.’ The words of a fanatic But he wasn’t a fanatic; I saw that for myself. He was no ODESSA agent, no Rache revolutionary. He was something else. Holcroft was right about that. Something else.”
“We’re at a dead end.”
“Not entirely. I have a man in Paris checking on the identities of the bodies found in Montereau.”
“La Sûreté?”
“Yes. He’s the best.” Tennyson sighed. “It’s all so incredible. After thirty years, the first overt moves are made, and within two weeks men come out of nowhere. As if they’d been waiting along with us for three decades. Yet they do not come out in the open. Why not? That is the sticking point. Why not?”
“The man said it to Holcroft in the alley. ‘We can put that fortune to use.’ They can’t get it if they expose Geneva’s sources.”
“Too simple; the amount’s too great. If it was money alone, nothing would prevent them from coming to us—to the bank’s directors, for that matter—and negotiating from a position of strength. Nearly eight hundred million; from their point of view, they could demand two thirds. They’d be dead after the fact, but they don’t know that. No, Erich, it’s not the money alone. We must look for something else.”
“We must look at the other crisis!” Kessler shouted. “Whoever that man was, tonight, whoever the two men were in Montereau, they’re secondary to our most immediate concern! Face it, Johann! The British know you’re the Tinamou! Don’t sidetrack that any longer. They know you’re the Tinamou!”
“Correction. They suspect I’m he; they don’t know it. And as Holcroft so correctly put it, they’ll soon be convinced they’re wrong, if they’re not convinced already, Actually, it’s a very advantageous position.”
“You’re mad!” screamed Kessler. “You will jeopardize everything!”
“On the contrary,” said Tennyson calmly. “I will solidify everything. What better ally could we have than MI Five? To be certain, we have men in British Intelligence, but none so high as Payton-Jones.”
“What in the name of God are you talking about?” The scholar was perspiring; the veins in his neck were pronounced.
“Sit down, Erich.”
“No!”
“Sit down!”
Kessler sat. “I won’t tolerate this, Johann.”
“Don’t tolerate anything; just listen.” Tennyson leaned forward. “For a few moments, let’s reverse roles; I’ll be the professor.”
“Don’t push me. We can handle intruders who won’t show themselves; they have something to hide. We can’t handle this. If you’re taken, what’s left?”
“That’s flattering, but you mustn’t think that way. If anything should happen to me, there are the lists, names of our people everywhere. A man can be found among them; the Fourth Reich will have a leader, in any event. But nothing will happen to me. The Tinamou is my shield, my protection. With his capture, I’m not only free of suspicion, I’m held in great respect.”
“You’ve lost your senses! You are the Tinamou!”
Tennyson sat back, smiling. “Let’s examine our assassin, shall we? Ten years ago you agreed he was my finest creation. I believe you said the Tinamou might well turn out to be our most vital weapon.”
“In theory. Only in theory. It was an academic judgment; I also said that!”
“True, you often take refuge high up in your cloistered tower, and that’s how it should be. But you were right, you know. In the last analysis, the millions in Switzerland cannot serve us unless they can be put to use. There are laws everywhere; they must be circumvented. It’s not as simple as it once was to pay for a Reichstag, or a block of seats in Parliament; or to buy an election in America. But for us it is nowhere near as difficult as it would be for others; that was your point ten years ago, and it is more valid today. We are in the position to make extraordinary demands on the most influential men in every major government. They’ve paid the Tinamou to assassinate their adversaries. From Washington to Paris to Cairo; from Athens to Beirut to Madrid; from London to Warsaw and even to Moscow itself. The Tinamou is irresistible. He is our own nuclear bomb.”
“And he can claim us in the fallout!”
“He could,” agreed Tennyson, “but he won’t. Years ago, Erich, we vowed to keep no secrets from each other, and I’ve kept that vow in all matters except one. I won’t apologize; it was, as they say, a decision of rank, and I felt it was necessary.”
“What did you do?” asked Kessler.
“Gave us that most vital weapon you spoke of ten years ago.”
“How?”
“A few moments ago you were quite specific. You raised your voice and said I was the Tinamou.”
“You are!”
“I’m not.”
“What?”
“I’m only half of the Tinamou. To be sure, the better half, but still only half. For years I trained another; he is my alternate in the field. His expertness has been taught, his brilliance acquired; next to the real Tinamou, he’s the best on earth.”
The scholar stared at the blond man in astonishment … and with awe. “He’s one of us? Ein Sonnenkind?”
“Of course not! He’s a paid killer; he knows nothing but an extraordinary life-style in which every need and appetite is gratified by the extraordinary sums he earns. He’s also aware that one day he may have to pay the price for his way of living, and he accepts that. He’s a professional.”
Kessler sank back in the chair and loosened his collar. “I must say, you never cease to amaze me.”
“I’m not finished,” replied Tennyson. “An event is taking place in London shortly, a gathering of heads of state. It’s the perfect opportunity. The Tinamou will be caught.”
“He’ll be what?”
“You heard correctly.” Tennyson smiled. “The Tinamou will be captured, a weapon in his hands, the odd caliber and the bore markings traceable to three previous assassinations. He will be caught and killed by the man who has been tracking him for nearly six years. A man who, for his own protection, wants no credit,
“My God,” whispered Kessler. “How will you do it?”
“Even you can’t know that. But there’ll be a dividend as powerful as Geneva itself. The word will go out, in print, that the Tinamou kept private records. They haven’t been found, and thus can be presumed to have been stolen by someone. That someone will be ourselves. So, in death, the Tinamou serves us still.”
Kessler shook his head in wonder. “You think exotically; that’s your essential gift.”
“Among others,” said the blond man matter-of-factly. “And our newfound alliance with MI Five may be helpful. Other intelligence services may be more sophisticated, but none are better.” Tennyson slapped the arm of his chair. “Now. Let’s get back to our unknown enemy. His identity is in the words spoken in that alley. I’ve heard them! I know it.”
“We’ve exhausted that approach.”
“We’ve only begun.” The blond man reached for a pencil and paper. “Now, from the beginning. We’ll write down everything he said, everything you can remember.”
The scholar sighed. “From the beginning,” he repeated. “Very well. According to Holcroft, the man’s first words referred to the killing in France, the fact that Holcroft had not hesitated to fire his pistol then.…”
Kessler spoke. Tennyson listened and interrupted and asked for repetitions of words and phrases. He wrote furiously. Forty minutes passed.
“I can’t go on any longer,” said Kessler. “There’s no more I can tell you.”
“Again, the eagles,” countered the blond man harshly. “Say the words exactly as Holcroft said them.”
“Eagles?… ‘You won’t stop the eagles. Not this time.’ Could he have meant the Luftwaffe? The Wehrmacht?”
“Not likely.” Tennyson looked down at the pages in front of him. He tapped his finger at something he had written down. “Here. ‘Your Wolfsschanze.’ Your Wolfsschanze.… Meaning ours, not theirs.”
“What are you talking about?” said Kessler. “We are Wolfsschanze; the men of Wolfsschanze are Sonnenkinder!”
Tennyson ignored the interruption. “Von Stauffenberg, Olbricht, Von Falkenhausen, and Höpner. Rommel called them ‘the true eagles of Germany.’ They were the insurrectionists, the Führer’s would-be assassins. All were shot; Rommel, ordered to take his own life. Those are the eagles he referred to. Their Wolfsschanze, not ours.”
“Where does it lead us? For God’s sake, Johann, I’m exhausted. I can’t go on!”
Tennyson had covered a dozen pages of paper; now he shuffled them, underlining words, circling phrases. “You may have said enough,” he replied. “It’s here … in this section. He used the words ‘butchers and clowns,’ and then, ‘you won’t stop the eagles.’… Only seconds later, Holcroft told him that the account would be tied up for years, that there were conditions … ‘the money frozen, sent back into the ground.’ The man repeated the phrase ‘back into the ground,’ saying it was the flaw. But then he added that there would be ‘no scorched earth.’ ‘Scorched earth.’ ‘There will be no … scorched earth.’ ”
The blond man’s upper body tensed. He leaned back in the chair, his sculptured face twisted in concentration, his cold eyes staring rigidly at the words on the paper. “It couldn’t be … after all these years. Operation Barbarossa! The ‘scorched earth’ of Barbarossa! Oh, my God, the Nachrichtendienst. It’s the Nachrichtendienst!”
“What are you talking about?” Kessler said. “ ‘Barbarossa’ was Hitler’s first invasion north, a magnificent victory.”
“He called it a victory. The Prussians called it a disaster. A hollow victory, written in blood. Whole divisions unprepared, decimated.… ‘We took the land,’ the generals said. ‘We took the worthless, scorched earth of Barbarossa.’ Out of it came the Nachrichtendienst.”
“What was it?”
“An intelligence unit. Rarefied, exclusively Junker, a corps of aristocrats. Later, there were those who thought it was a Gehlen operation, designed to sow distrust between the Russians and the West. But it wasn’t; it was solely its own. It loathed Hitler; it scorned the Schutzstaffel—‘SS garbage’ was the term it used; it hated the commanders of the Luftwaffe. All were called ‘butchers and clowns.’ It was above the war, above the party. It was only for Germany. Their Germany.”
“Say what you mean, Johann!” shouted Kessler.
“The Nachrichtendienst survives. It’s the intruder. It wants to destroy Geneva. It will stop at nothing to abort the Fourth Reich before it’s born.”
27
Noel waited on the bridge, watching the lights of Paris flicker like clusters of tiny candles. He had reached Helden at Gallimard; she had agreed to meet him after work on the Pont Neuf. He had tried to persuade her to drive to the hotel in Argenteuil, but she had declined his offer.
“You promised me days, weeks, if I wished,” he said.
“I promised us both, my darling, and we’ll have them. But not Argenteuil. I’ll explain when I see you.”
It was barely five-fifteen; the winter night descended on Paris quickly, and the chill of the river wind penetrated him. He pulled up the collar of his secondhand overcoat to ward off the cold. He looked at his watch again; its hands had not moved. How could they have? No more than ten seconds had elapsed.
He felt like a young man waiting for a girl he had met at a country club in the summer moonlight, and he smiled to himself, feeling awkward and embarrassed, not wanting to acknowledge his anxiety. He was not in the moonlight on some warm summer’s night. He was on a bridge in Paris, and the air was cold, and he was dressed in a secondhand overcoat, and in his pocket was a gun.
He saw her walking onto the bridge. She was wearing the black raincoat, her blond hair encased by a dark-red scarf that framed her face. Her pace was steady, neither rapid nor casual; she was a lone woman going home from her place of work. Except for her striking features—only hinted at in the distance—she was like thousands of other women in Paris, heading home in the early evening.
She saw him. He started walking toward her, but she held up her hand, a signal for him to remain where he was. He paid no attention, wanting to reach her quickly, his arms held out. She walked into them and they embraced, and he felt warm in the comfort of being with her again. She pulled her head back and looked at him, then pretended to be firm, but her eyes smiled.
“You must never run on a bridge,” she said. “A man running across a bridge stands out. One strolls over the water; one doesn’t race.”
“I missed you. I don’t give a damn.”
“You must learn to. How was Berlin?”
He put his arm around her shoulder and they started toward the quai Saint-Bernard, and the Left Bank. “I’ve got a lot to tell you, some good, some not so good. But if learning something is progress, I think we’ve taken a couple of giant steps. Have you heard from your brother?”
“Yes. This afternoon. He called an hour after you did. His plans have changed; he can be in Paris tomorrow.”
“That’s the best news you could give me. At least, I think it is. I’ll let you know tomorrow.” They walked off the bridge and turned left along the riverbank. “Did you miss me?”
“Noel, you’re mad. You left yesterday afternoon. I barely had time to get home, bathe, have a very-much-needed night’s sleep, and get to work.”
“You went home? To your apartment?”
“No, I—” She stopped and looked up at him, smiling. “Very good, Noel Holcroft, new recruit. Interrogate casually.”
“I don’t feel casual.”
“You promised not to ask that question.”
“Not specifically. I asked you if you were married, or living with someone—to which I got a negative to the first and a very oblique answer to the second—but I never actually promised not to try and find out where you live.”
“You implied it, my darling. One d
“Tell me now. I’m in love. I want to know where my woman lives.”
The smile disappeared from her lips. Then it returned, and she glanced up at him again. “You’re like a little boy practicing a new word. You don’t know me well enough to love me; I told you that.”
“I forgot. You like women.”
“They’re among my best friends.”
“But you wouldn’t want to marry one.”
“I don’t want to marry anyone.”
“Good. It’s less complicated. Just move in with me for the next ten years, exercisable options on both sides.”
“You say such nice things.”
They stopped at an intersection. He turned Helden to him, both his hands on her arms. “I say them because I mean them.”
“I believe you,” she said, looking at him curiously, her eyes part questioning, part fearful.
He saw the fear; it bothered him, and so he smiled. “Love me a little?”
She could not bring the smile to her lips. “I think I love you more than a little. You’re a problem I didn’t want. I’m not sure I can handle it.”
“That’s even better.” He laughed and took her hand to cross the street “It’s nice to know you don’t have all the answers.”
“Did you believe I did?”
“I thought you thought so.”
“I don’t.”
“I know.”
The restaurant was half filled with diners. Helden asked for a table in the rear, out of sight of the entrance. The proprietor nodded. It was apparent that he could not quite fathom why this belle femme would come into his establishment with such a poorly dressed companion. In his eyes was the comment: things were not going well for the girls of Paris these days. Nights.
“He doesn’t approve of me,” said Holcroft.
“There’s hope for you, though. You grew in his estimation when you specified expensive whiskey. He grinned; didn’t you see?”
“He was looking at my jacket. It came from a somewhat better rack than the overcoat.”
Helden laughed. “That overcoat’s purpose was not high fashion. Did you use it in Berlin?”