"Then there is a public pay phone on the main floor by the side entrance."
She was gone and so was Carter, down the stairs.
He used the hot-line number to West Berlin's AXE offices, but when a female voice answered, he didn't request the scrambler. He just barked.
"This is Carter, N3! Get me Marty Jacobs… now!"
She moved. Click, click, whirr, whirr, and the head of AXE Berlin was on the line.
"Jesus, Nick, you didn't check in when you arrived. I didn't know you were in town."
"I was going to, later. Marty, F need action, and I need it now."
Quickly, Carter gave the man a rundown on events and what he wanted.
"I don't know, Nick — this guy Vintner's a hard nut, an old hand."
"I don't give a damn if he's Adolf reincarnate, I want pressure."
"I'll have to call D.C., speak to the old man himself, for that kind of clout."
"Do it!"
"Okay. Why the private investigator scam?"
"Two reasons. First, it's the only alternate credentials I have with me. Second, until I find out what this is all about, I doubt if the old man wants us involved officially."
"Reasonable. I'll move. It shouldn't take any more than an hour."
"Cut that in half if you can!"
Carter hung up, went into the street, and headed toward a bar he had already spotted. "Scotch, neat… a double."
He paid for the drink when it came, and carried it and his change to the pay phone in the corner.
"Klinkcom-Charlottenburg, good afternoon."
"Give me the head nurse on Four East."
"One moment."
"Four East. This is Sister Gruber."
"Sister Gruber, this is Nick Carter. I accompanied Lisa Berrington to the hospital and signed her in."
"Ja, ja, Herr Carter."
"How is she?"
"Sleeping soundly now. We gave her another sedative."
"Did she awaken at all?"
"Only once, and I'm afraid she was still a bit hysterical. But I am sure she will be fine by tomorrow, mein Herr." Thank you. I'll call again later this evening."
He downed the scotch and went back across the street to SSD headquarters. On the second floor he parked on the same hard wooden bench that he had already warmed for almost two hours.
Twenty minutes later, Fräulein Metzger came at him down the hall like a one-woman panzer division.
"Follow me!" she grunted, whirled into reverse, and goose-stepped away.
"Danke," Carter replied with a wide smile as he followed her down the hall and into an office.
The hinges rattled when she slammed the door behind her.
The office was Spartan and drab, almost dingy. A well-worn oak desk held a telephone, a million uncoordinated papers, and about a hundred pipes. Two chairs and a wooden file cabinet of undeniable antiquity made up the rest of the furniture. The uncovered parquet floor was uneven and splintery, and the walls had been painted a nauseous green a decade or two earlier.
All in all, it was very shabby and somehow, to Carter, very un-German.
Carter was staring at a square patch on the wall where a picture or a calendar had once hung, when the door opened behind him.
"Carter?"
"Yes."
"I'm Vintner."
He was about six feet, a couple of inches shorter than Carter but twice as wide and all muscle. He was well dressed in a mussed summer suit that fitted his bulk perfectly, but he wore it with no flair. He looked "cop," the kind of man on whom clothes lost character and whose shoes, though polished, never seemed quite as bright as they should be.
"I speak German," Carter said in German.
"No shit. So do I," Vintner replied in New York-accented English. "But ten-to-one my English is better than your German. Sit down."
Carter did, on the hard-bottomed, straight-backed chair, while Vintner slid onto the cracked leather one. The chief inspector shoved a pipe between his teeth and put fire to the bowl, eyeing Carter through the smoke screen he made.
His face had a battered appearance. His nose had been broken and poorly reset; there was a scar on his chin and a faint red line at his hairline where his gray hair refused to grow. All in all, it was a face that had seen the wars.
"Your English is good. I'd say aristocratic Queens."
"Princeton, Class of 43."
That was a grabber, and Carter didn't try to hide the reaction.
"My mother took me to the States two jumps in front of Hitler in 39."
"When did you come back to the fatherland?"
"In 45, with Patton. What do you want, Carter?"
"A helping hand. You give me one, I give you one. What do you say?"
"First of all, I say don't give me any bullshit. No P.I. in the world has the kind of clout that just got shoved up my ass. "Who the hell are you?"
Carter weighed the situation, and the man, and made his decision. "Strictly between you and me?"
"I'll let you know after I know."
Carter nodded. He felt he was on equal footing with this man, and consequently in safe territory. He withdrew his oversize passport wallet and from a false side in the leather took out his true credentials.
Vintner took one look at them, passed them back, and leaned back in his chair. "Okay, what have you got?"
"You first," Carter said, lighting a cigarette to combat the pipe clouds more than anything.
"They both got it from a French F1, Tireur d'Elite, 7.62mm."
Carter whistled. "Sniper specialist."
Vintner nodded. "The woman died instantly. The officer, Hans Erlichmann, took forty-five seconds from a scratch on his thigh."
"Cyanide?"
"Yes, they just confirmed it."
"What was the range?"
"Over four-hundred meters. We found the gun on top of the Insulaner. You know it?"
"I know it," Carter replied. "Any prints?"
"None. A couple of kids were messing around on a blanket on that side of the hill. They had sneaked up from the swimming pool. About the right time, a big guy in black leather and a helmet almost steps on them coming like hell down the hill."
"Did they see his face?"
Vintner shook his head. "He had his visor down. They saw him climb on a big BMW motorcycle and fly."
"But they didn't get the license number?"
"No way, too far away. But the boy identified the make, model, and year. He's got one himself. We've got the word out everywhere it matters. Chances are the bike was stolen within the last two weeks. Now you."
Carter told him about Lisa Berrington, the phone call, the rift in the Conway marriage, and his own reasons for being drawn into the fracas.
"Delaine Conway wasn't any more specific about what she was afraid of, was she?"
"No," Carter replied. "But I'll try to get a little more tomorrow. Lisa should be back to reality by then. What about Conway himself?"
Vintner shrugged. "Just cursory… grief and all that."
"Yeah," Carter said, noting the wryness in the man's voice. "When will you take his statement?"
"About noon tomorrow. He's at the Berlin Ambassador. I told him we could do it there."
"You mind if I sit in?"
"Suit yourself. Just remember, this is out of your line. I'm the cop."
Carter smiled. "No problem, you're the man. But we've both got theories, haven't we?"
Suddenly the big chief inspector's granite face broke into a smile of its own. "Yeah, I imagine we do."
"All the more reason I'm a 'private detective' instead of connected." Vintner nodded, and Carter continued. "This kind of a hit would take a lot of money to finance, wouldn't it?"
"You know it would."
"I've got an appointment with a man at seven tonight who might help us in that area. In the meantime, do you have a copy of the television footage?"
"Of course."
He reached for the phone, and a minute later Fräulein Metzger entered. "Herr Carter would like to see the film," Vintner told her in clipped, commanding German.