"You crazy bitch…!"
He froze. Her left hand had moved around to place a piece of paper and a small pen on the raft under his face.
"Read that and sign it."
The Turk had to wipe the sweat with nervous fingers from his eyes before they would focus.
"You are a crazy bitch!"
"Didn't you supply the F1 for Hessling?"
Silence. She ground the silencer deeper.
"Oow, damn you!"
"Didn't you?"
"I've got a lawyer! You pigs can't get away with…"
She chuckled in his ear. "I am not SSD or the police."
"Then why…?"
"Blackmail. I know who hired Hessling to find Klauswitz."
"I don't know Klauswitz."
"No matter. When it all goes together, there will be a great deal of money. The evidence must be overwhelming. If you cooperate, you will get this confession back. You might even make some of the profit."
She could feel his body relax slightly beneath hers.
"But if the police get this…" he stammered.
"They won't. Sign!"
The Turk took the pen in his shaking right hand. He closed his left hand over his right wrist to keep it steady, and scrawled his signature across the bottom of the page: Demetrius Baclevic.
"Very good."
She pulled the pen and paper from beneath his face and fired the third slug into his brain.
She folded the paper carefully and returned it and the pen to the pouch. When the pouch was anchored securely in her bra, Anna Palmitkov slid into the water and swam back to the grassy shoreline.
It was just after seven o'clock. With any luck, she would have a meeting arranged between herself and Stephan Conway before the evening was out.
Lisa called at seven. Carter broke long enough to pad down the hall to her suite for food.
The atmosphere was tense as he brought her up to date on what he had learned.
Ursula Rhinemann had made at least two trips a month to the States in the last six months, some to New York, some to San Francisco. It could be all business, or there could have been a lot of hanky-panky mixed in. There was no way of telling without checking all of Stephan Conway's movements in the States as well, and that would be very difficult.
Lisa would start on it in the morning.
"It's all loose, isn't it?" she sighed. "Circumstantial."
"So far," Carter admitted. "If Rhinemann is part of the triangle, it looks as though Conway has put her up front with everything. If there is a fall, it's her word against his."
They finished the meal in silence. Carter didn't tell her that a little over an hour before, the bomb boys had removed eight sticks of dynamite from the toilet in his room.
From the haggard look on her face, she couldn't take that knowledge along with everything else she had absorbed during the last few days.
At the door she kissed him perfunctorily on the cheek. It was pretty obvious to Carter that she wanted — and needed — to be alone as much as he.
"Get a good night's sleep," he murmured, squeezing her shoulder gently.
"I'll try."
"Take a pill."
Again in his room, he dived back into the Hessling papers. They said a lot, but nothing that would do him any good nailing Conway. The only real information was that, by reading between the lines, Herr Hessling did have some strong contacts in the Eastern sector that were very profitable.
Carter was almost finished, when there was a light tap at the door.
"Yeah?"
"Vintner."
Carter opened the door and the big man marched into the room. He dropped into an easy chair, loosened his tie, and undid his top shirt buttons.
"Long day?"
"You know it. Your boys have started World War Three out there. Thank God the Voigts don't know where to hit back!"
"Other than blowing up my ass… literally," Carter growled. "Drink? I've got brandy and scotch."
"Brandy's fine. Any results?"
"Not yet." Carter handed him the glass. It was gone in one swallow. "Anything on the Turk?"
"His name is Demetrius Baclevic. And he's disappeared."
"Tipped?"
"Who knows? Maybe old man Voigt will tell you, if you ever get to him."
Carter brought the SSD man up to date on every piece of info he had garnered that day. Vintner sat, slouched, scowling at the empty glass rolling between his big hands.
"So, what have we got?" he said at last. "We've got a lot of little things that point to Ursula Rhinemann, and from her we guess Conway."
"But nothing that would nail him," Carter added.
"How's the sister taking it?"
"Rough."
"How do you figure it?"
Carter sighed, finished his drink, and refilled both their glasses.
"Conway marries Delaine for her money and contacts. The money works, the marriage doesn't. It gets worse when Rhinemann comes on the scene. Somebody tries to blackmail Conway. He sees it as a way to threaten his own life. So he sends Rhinemann out to hunt for a shooter."
"And she finds Hessling."
"Right. The irony is that Hessling probably found her, only she didn't know it."
Carter decided to come clean about the Peter Limpton/Boris Simonov connection with Hessling.
"My guess is Hessling hired the shooter, and gave him instructions to waste Delaine and do everything he could to make it look like Conway was the target. Hessling keeps all the marbles, and when everything cools down, he's really got some blackmail ammunition."
Vintner pulled himself from the chair. "It would fit. But with Hessling dead, so is the proof."
"Unless we get the shooter."
"Yeah, unless we get the shooter."
"Check in with me in the morning."
"Will do," the chief inspector grunted, and closed the door behind him.
Carter sat in an easy chair by the window, turned off the lamp, and stared out at the city.
Was the shooter still out there, or was he long gone? Hessling's phone call to Limpton/Simonov would indicate that the man was sure he was going to get the goods. That would mean that Hessling had the shooter on ice in case he needed him to back up the blackmail shot.
Thinking about it made Carter weary. He dozed. And the doze deepened and became sleep.
The phone brought him upright in the chair. He snapped on the light and glanced at his watch. It was three in the morning.
"Carter here."
"All right, you son of a bitch, call off your dogs!"
"Nice of you to call, Erich."
"My limo will be at the side door of the hotel in fifteen minutes."
"And Hans-Otto?"
"My father is on the island waiting for you."
"Nice to do business with you, Erich."
He cut the connection and redialed AXE Berlin. When he got Marty Jacobs on the line, he gave the order to halt the war.
Then he took a long shower, shaved, and climbed into clean clothes.
Forty-five minutes after Erich Voigt's phone call, he went downstairs.
Screw 'em, the Killmaster thought. They made me wait two days, they can wait an extra half hour.
Twelve
The estate was exactly what the term implied and then some. It covered a good-size island in the middle of the Havel River.
They covered him from both sides as they got out of the Mercedes limo. At the dock they patted him down and found Wilhelmina. One of them started to stick his hairy paw under Carter's jacket, and the Killmaster grabbed his wrist.
"Oh, no, you don't," he hissed. "This Christian doesn't meet the lions naked."
"It's impossible!"
"Then we end the cease-fire."
"Wait here."
He stomped down to the waiting launch and started working a phone. Carter turned to the other one.