Weir felt a jolt of anger and satisfaction. “How did Colonel Benton know I’d left the Greenbrier?”
“For about twelve hours, he didn’t,” Riley said. “Fortunately Captain Jetter is a light sleeper. When he finally realized you’d given him the slip, he remembered dreaming about a helicopter, then decided it had been a real one. A list was made of all airports with overseas schedules within a reasonable ’copter distance from Virginia. Lufthansa was checked for their passenger lists from those depots. They got Dallas, your flight, your destination and Benton put a call through to me in Frankfurt.”
“But Germany, why did Colonel Benton believe I’d be going to Germany?”
“I asked the same question,” Riley said. “Colonel Benton informed me that was not a need-to-know priority, I could complete my assignment without that information.”
“And my trip to the Tranchet farm? I assume that was you in the pickup truck.”
“Yes. I checked your background at the American military library in Heidelberg and got the material on the Medal of Honor and your friendship with the family. I was convinced you’d head there. It’s a sixth sense that intelligence agents develop... I can’t think of a better word for it.” He sipped his drink. “Captain Tranchet-LeRoi is quite a fan of yours, by the way.”
“Did you see him before or after I did?”
“Just a short time afterward,” Lenox Riley said. “He was emotional, pretty shaken by your visit, said you’d always been like a second father to him. My most sincere condolences on the death of your son, by the way.”
“Thank you. The Tranchets and Alain were part of this sentimental journey, I suppose. After my son’s death I had a great need to touch some familiar pickets in an old fence. It’s been a healing few days. I’m ready to go home now.”
“The clerk in the pharmacy said you’d been experiencing some stomach disorders.”
“Emotions,” Scotty Weir said. “Purely emotions gone amok.” He held up his glass. “But I find this helps.”
“Good,” Riley said. “Mind if I freshen mine and switch on a few lights? It’s gloomy as hell in here.”
“Drink up,” Weir said. “I don’t want to put an opened bottle in my suitcase. We’ve got time. The front desk said they’d ring up when the limo comes round.”
The two men sat in the back seat during the drive to Ludensdorf s municipal airport. The chauffeur, wearing a uniform and a visored cap with “Rhein-Baden Spa” on the band, drove at a steady speed along the autobahn, the highway lit at intervals with antifog lamps that cast a yellow glow on the roadside snowdrifts.
Neither man spoke for several kilometers. Riley held his liquor well, Weir thought; in the hotel his speech had remained clear, his hands steady. But as the man turned to him now in the back seat, Weir noticed a small tic had begun to pull at the side of his mouth.
“I’m flattered that you thought I was CIA,” he said. “That was my berth for several years. It’s like going to a good prep school, the training always shows.” Riley looked out the rear window at the dark countryside and absently scrawled his initials on the damp glass. “They assigned me a lateral, exotic approach,” he went on. “Arbitrage banking. I actually worked in a bank in Calcutta for six years after Princeton. Had a large gentleman’s flat and half a dozen servants. Couldn’t even reach for a drink for myself. A twelve-year-old boy in red pantaloons stood by my chair to do that.”
“Why would anyone leave that kind of plush assignment?” Weir asked.
Riley was thoughtful. “I’m not homosexual,” he said, “just unmarried. But if you ask dozens of people dozens of questions about anyone’s behavior, you’re likely to find some touch of gossip, hot-tubbing in a drunken mood, a misconstrued invitation to spend the night.” He shrugged. “In spite of their investigation, I tested out like a bar of Ivory soap, general.”
“The top Army brass is still using you, Riley,” Weir said. “That’s all the vindication a man needs.”
At the airport the driver pulled past the main terminal and took a narrow road behind the maintenance sheds to a corner of the tarmac where a four-seater Bonanza was taxiing into position. The two passengers stepped from the limo, while the driver stowed Weir’s single piece of luggage in the plane, then left the field through a black and white striped exit gate.
Lenox Riley looked appraisingly at the plane, then said, “You strap into the rear passenger seat, general. I’ll sit next to the pilot.” He swung himself into the second cockpit seat, put a hand inside his jacket and removed the .38 special from a shoulder holster. He rested the gun on his knee.
“I’m presuming your German is more fluent than mine, general. Tell our pilot I understand something about planes and I can read flight plans and instrument panels.”
“I speak English,” the pilot said.
“Very well,” Riley said. “We want to deliver Mr. Weir to Munich by eight o’clock so he can be aboard Lufthansa 257 for a nine o’clock flight. And we want no mistakes.”
The pilot nodded, turned the plane one hundred and eighty degrees and began to taxi around the perimeter of the field. A row of private planes stood parked at one side of the area, dark and locked for the night. Two small feeder lines were boarding passengers at the brightly lit terminal and in the public parking lot a pair of local taxis idled, while a few parked cars shone under arc lights.
Riley sat beside the pilot, silent but alert, eyes traveling over the expanse of air field. Suddenly the plane’s headbeams picked out the black and white striped exit gate.
“Goddamnit!” Riley said abruptly. “We’re right back where we started from!”
“I’m waiting for the control tower...” the pilot began.
“Listen, you swine...” Riley’s voice broke into a yelp of pain as Tarbert Weir leaned forward suddenly and struck him a fast blow on the neck with the blade of his hand. Riley was dazed but struggling when the pilot knocked him unconscious with a second blow that caught a vital artery. The man slid sideways, breathing raggedly.
Weir reached forward and lifted the Smith and Wesson from Riley’s limp hand. Fritz Vestrick turned in the pilot’s seat to look at him. “Jesus, Scotty, you tapped him like some kid testing a ripe watermelon.”
“I’d have got him the second time,” Weir said. “He fooled me, he’s as drunk and relaxed as a turkey.” The general shook his head sadly. “I’ll take my gear now, Fritz. Can you believe that poor dumb bastard thinks he’s got a sixth sense going for him?”
Vestrick handed the waterproof pouch to Weir and a set of car keys. “My Mercedes is parked right in front of the terminal. There’s a rabbit’s foot tied to the mirror, you can’t miss it.”
“How much fuel do you have?”
“Enough to cruise at four thousand feet for a while, then enough to get him there and get me back. I’ll have him on the ground in Munich at half-past nine sharp.”
Weir opened the plane door and swung his suitcase to the tarmac. Then he reached out and gripped Vestrick’s broad shoulder. “Auf wiedersehen, pardner,” he said. “I’ll call you from Springfield when it’s all over.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
The weather had turned bitter, an early spring snowstorm sharp with wind and sleeting snow. Sometimes the flakes seemed to be falling from the dark skies; at other moments the flurries were lifted in gusts from the rock-hard ground and swirled against the assembled troops, tanks and guns with stinging force by mountain winds.