She frowned. “What for?”
“Do you think the Gestapo had a monopoly on extreme methods of torture?” I was thinking of Joe again, and of Karen. I told myself again that she hadn’t been the woman I’d seen sacrificed; I willed myself to believe that was the case.
“She’s hurt,” Fraulein Rothmann said, more animated now. “You can’t-”
She broke off when I touched my groin. “Good-looking woman, your daughter,” I said, licking my lips ostentatiously. “I’m looking forward to giving her everything I’ve got.” I was not proud of this strategy.
“You’re disgusting,” Fraulein Rothmann said, spittle flying from her lips. “There are policemen downstairs. You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me. Have you see any warrants? This is hardly an official operation.” I got up and headed for the door.
“Stop!” she said, stretching out her bound hands. “Please! Leave Dana alone!”
“All right,” I said, going back to the bed. “But I won’t hesitate if I think you’re lying.”
She kept her eyes off me as I sat down next to her and picked up the gun.
“Where’s Karen Oaten?” I asked, my heart suddenly thundering. “I hope for your sake she’s still alive.”
“I don’t know.”
“But you do know who I’m talking about.”
“Of course.”
“I suppose you just saw the news reports of her disappearance.”
Her eyes burned into mine. “Don’t be ridiculous. She was in the camp, the same as you. I don’t know where she is now.”
I rocked back at the unexpected admission.
“Why was she there?”
“For the same reason you were. To learn the error of her ways.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I demanded-I wanted her to spell out what she and her brother were doing.
Irma Rothmann sighed. “She was getting too close to an associate of Woodbridge Holdings.”
“Gavin Burdett.”
“If you know, why do you waste time asking?”
I let that go. “Has something been done to Karen’s memory?”
“Oh, I think so,” she said, with a tight smile. “Don’t you?”
I forced myself to move on. “The occult murders. Who’s the killer?”
“What makes you imagine I know?”
It was my turn to sigh. “We know of Woodbridge Holdings’s links to the North American Nazi Revival and the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant. You decided to make examples of occult people you didn’t approve of, didn’t you?”
She gave a harsh laugh. “Oh, come now.”
“Loki was an embarrassment to your puritanical movement. He made Nazism ridiculous.”
She pursed her lips.
“And Monsieur Hexie was black, Professor Singer was a Jew and Crystal Vileda was a Hispanic. Untermenschen, all of them.”
“I cannot argue with that characterization.”
“So who killed them?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, looking away.
She wasn’t sure, but she obviously had suspicions. The murderer had to have some relation to the Rothmann twins and their activities-the pairs of murder weapons, the choice of victims, the way I’d been framed as soon as I left the camp, Woodbridge Holdings’s timber and newspaper businesses-everything was connected.
Then I thought of the diagrams that had been attached to the victims: squares and rectangles in four different arrays-what did they mean? Lights flashed before me and I heard an echo of martial music; something I’d seen when I was under the machine in the camp, something that had started as shots of fences and guard towers, a gate with German words above it, rows and rows of huts…and then was mapped from above, into a composite picture…a familiar map of helclass="underline"
“Auschwitz,” I said, my voice faint.
A smile spread across the woman’s thin lips. “Ah, the maps,” she said slowly. “You understand them… Bravo.”
I kept silent, my mind in a frenzy. Why had the killer deliberately left clues pointing to a Nazi link?
“You aren’t in complete control of the killer, are you?” I said at last.
“You’re not as clever as you think, Matt Wells. You have overlooked something much more important.”
The tone of her voice warned me that I was in danger, but I didn’t know how to react.
Before I could do anything, she screamed, “Barbarossa! The policemen! Barbarossa!”
She said the words twice before I got a hand over her mouth. As I restrained her, I felt a strange mix of emotions-shock at the virulence of her screams, but also a pressure that was being brought to bear on me and an urge, frightening in its intensity, to comply with some immutable authority.
Then the rational part of my mind kicked in. Barbarossa: it was the code name for the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union-the greatest act of aggression in human history. I realized that it was a trigger and pushed myself away from Irma Rothmann. As I crashed down the stairs, images cascaded before me-twin weapons puncturing flesh and organs; twin weapons, held by the hands of twin murderers; twins from a farm on Iowa, whose father had died trying to bring them home; twins who had now been ordered to attack.
Gavin Burdett was sitting in front of the TV in a house on the outskirts of Baltimore, his trousers and boxers round his ankles. Despite the pair of muscle-bound guards downstairs and the open door, he had been zapping between porn channels. There was a bevy of women pretending to be lesbians that almost got him going, but then he had found a spoof horror movie that featured a zombie orgy. It was one of the best climaxes he’d had in months.
After he cleaned himself up, he surfed the normal channels. A cold stiletto of fear had entered his gut when he saw Karen Oaten getting out of a helicopter. What was the bitch doing free? Larry had promised him she’d never be seen again.
Burdett got up, stretched for his cell phone and was brought down by the clothes round his ankles. He finally reached the device and called Thomson’s private number.
“What the fuck’s going on?” he screamed. “Oaten’s free.”
“Of course she is.”
“But…but you told me she was finished. What about the case against me?”
“Oh, Gavin, how can you be so selfish?”
“What do you mean? If I go down, so do you.”
Larry Thomson laughed. “That’s not exactly true, you know,” he said smoothly. “There are other eventualities.”
The connection was broken.
Gavin Burdett threw the phone down and caught sight of the men in the doorway. The one in front was carrying a length of rope with a noose at one end.
The last thing the investment banker thought of was the tarot card depicting the hanged man. He knew more than he should have of the occult world, and now he was paying the price. The hanged man meant relinquishing control, different priorities and readjustment. But, as he was only too well aware, it also pointed to a necessary sacrifice.
By the time I got to the dining-room door, the twins had already struck. Clem and Versace were both motionless on the floor; a table knife protruded from Pinker’s bloody chest. Nearer to me, Gwen was sawing frantically at the plastic ties on Dana Maltravers’s wrists and Randy was turning my way with Clem’s pistol. I had already racked the slide on the FBI woman’s weapon and I got a shot off before he did. Randy took it in the upper abdomen and crashed backward into the empty fireplace.
His sister shrieked and turned the knife on me. I brought my free hand down hard on her forearm. The knife carved an arc through the air and landed on the opposite side of the table, out of Maltravers’s reach. The agent stood up and charged at me with her head down. I was driven into the door frame, but I managed to keep a grip on the gun. The blow stunned me and I could hardly move, but something else was holding me back, a force I couldn’t resist…
“Leave him,” I heard Irma Rothmann say from the hall. “He won’t harm us now. I can drive. I cut myself free with these nail scissors-we’ll free you in the car, Dana.”
The FBI woman slammed both her elbows into my belly and then stumbled out. Gwen went with her, eyes wide. Then I threw up on to the carpet and tried to get a grip on myself as the pressure in my mind lessened.