The lovers Tristan and Isolde: I wondered if there was some incestuous bond between the twins. I thought about Thomson’s sister. I hadn’t meant to kill Irma Rothmann, but my mind had been all over the place and I’d had a rush of blood when I acted. Although it wasn’t the first time I’d killed, the death of the Soul Collector’s sister had been an accident and I still regretted it. With the woman whose father had worked at Auschwitz, I seemed to be curiously unmoved. Thomson’s twin was a Nazi whose activities had probably led to many deaths and plenty of suffering at the camp, but I would still have expected some kind of emotional backlash.
Instead, I started thinking about the trigger that turned Gwen and Randy into vicious aggressors. All it had taken was the single word Barbarossa. I seemed to have a lot of information at my fingertips about it. My memory was still behaving very unpredictably-had this stuff been planted? Barbarossa, or Redbeard, was the nickname of Fredrick I of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 until his death in 1190. He was a great general and natural leader, and an inspiration to future generations of Germans, particularly those driven by dreams of conquest-whence the use of his nickname for the Nazi operation to attack the Soviet Union.
I twitched my head and came back to the real world. The point was that hearing Barbarossa had made Gwen and Randy act in a way that was obviously preconditioned. Their escape from the camp was just a story. They were playing parts in some devious plan, pretending to be junkies, perhaps unaware or only partly aware of what was happening. Which led to another thought. Exactly why had they been hanging out in a disused warehouse in D.C.? Gordy Lister knew, I was sure of that. Letting him go was looking even more like a cardinal error. Had the twins been stashed there because of the proximity to the Capitol or the White House?
A siren on the other side of the river caught my attention. I waited till it faded, then hid the bag with my remaining gear under a bush and walked across the bridge. As I got to the other side, I saw a bulky shadow pass quietly underneath. It was a dark boat with silver trim and was showing only running lights. I reckoned that was the Isolde. It slowed as it approached the pier. I focused on my plan of action. It was only a few minutes’ walk to the marina. The gate had already been opened for early morning business. I went in and walked toward the piers. It was a relief to see the cruiser was heading where I had anticipated. As I approached that pier, two men stepped out of the shadows. So much for Thomson coming alone. I was patted down and relieved of my cell phone and revolver, and an electronic scanner was run over me to check for surveillance devices. Eventually I was pushed toward the boat. Looking round, I saw that the gorillas weren’t following me.
I stopped at the end of the pier.
“Thomson?” I called. “I’m coming aboard.”
The tall man was fastening a mooring rope at the stern of the boat. He had a cell phone against his ear, having presumably just been informed by the guards that I was clean. Suddenly fearful of facing him unarmed, I was tempted to scrabble for the pistol under the pier, but I got a grip on myself. Surrendering was the only way I would be able to get close to the surviving twin.
I stepped onto the boat, ignoring Thomson’s outstretched hand. He was wearing a black polo-neck and black trousers, and he looked in good physical shape. As he led me into the cabin, I tried to see if he was armed. I needn’t have bothered.
He turned toward me and invited me to search him. I did so, and found nothing. He must have been following some weird Nazi honor code.
“Good,” he said, with a surprisingly warm smile. “Now we can get down to business. You’re lucky that I’m anxious to meet you. I don’t normally bother with such day-to-day nuisances.”
It was then that the door to the front cabin opened.
Larry Thomson had lied about being alone, all right. Not only that, but he’d invited the surviving occult killer along.
And Gwen Bonhoff didn’t look at all forgiving about what I’d done to her twin brother and her Fuhrer’s sister.
Forty-Three
“You can use this office, Detective Chief Superintendent.”
Karen Oaten glanced around the spacious room and nodded to the female agent.
“I’ll be outside if you need anything.”
“Thanks.” Karen put her briefcase down on the desk. Despite the early hour, there were plenty of people already at work in the J. Edgar Hoover building. Someone had stacked mail on the desk.
Sitting down, she went through the letters. Some of it dated from before her kidnap and concerned the Burdett case. She discarded that. There were also messages from back then, including some from senators and representatives with interests in international crime and policing. Turning to the computer, she saw a sheet of paper telling her how to log on and access her personal e-mail. She did so and was immediately alert.
The first message was from the director of the FBI. He congratulated her on her courage during the kidnapping and invited her to a celebration of her release that afternoon at four o’clock. He couldn’t be certain, but there was a good chance that the justice secretary would attend-she had followed Karen’s ordeal with great interest and wished to welcome her back in person, depending, of course, on her schedule.
Karen sat back, a smile on her lips. That was excellent, even more than she had hoped for. She had only to wait until the afternoon. Then she could guarantee that the news programs would have a hot story to report. But, more important, the movement would be fully under way and nothing would ever be the same again.
“She isn’t armed,” Larry Thomson said, his eyes blue and chill in the soft lights of the cruiser’s surprisingly large living space.
I looked at Gwen. She seemed to be having trouble keeping control of herself, her hands twitching and her eyes wide.
“She’s got nails,” I said.
“Indeed she has.” Thomson sat down and waved to me to do the same. “My little tigress.” He gave her a tight smile.
I decided to go on the offensive. I needed to get the self-styled Fuhrer talking.
“If you don’t mind, I’m going to call you Rothmann.”
“Oh, please-do use my first name.”
I wasn’t going to do his bidding. “Why the change to Thomson?”
He looked at me curiously. “I thought you had everything worked out, Mr. Wells.”
“Obviously not.”
“You see, Irma and I died in 1972.”
“Really? So I killed a ghost last night, did I? A vampire? Yeah, that makes sense. You Nazis share plenty of characteristics with the undead.”
“There’s no need to be crude,” Thomson said, taking a cigarette from a silver case and lighting it. “I’m telling you about my personal history. Are you interested or not?”
I shrugged. He had me there. I needed as much detail as I could get if I was ever to clear myself-assuming I survived this tete-a-tete.
“We went over a cliff in my sports car.”
“Except you substituted the bodies. Who were they? Some unfortunate college kids?”
He smiled emptily. “Jews.”
A wave of nausea washed over me. I took a deep breath. “What was the point of the scam? Was your family background becoming an embarrassment?”
He frowned. “Let’s say that the American establishment was less keen to have links to the Third Reich in the seventies, even though we were second generation.”
“So you reinvented yourselves.”
“Exactly. It’s the American way. Of course, we kept on doing what we were good at. My sister-” he broke off and eyed me with a worrying lack of emotion “-Irma is…” He broke off and pursed his lips. “Irma was a brilliant chemist, as well as a world-class neuroscientist. She developed many drugs and processes that have become world beaters.”