"Got a match?"
Reluctantly a lighter flared, and Carter inhaled deeply. The cigarette was half gone when the angry goon returned, angrier than ever.
"Come!"
It was a fifteen-minute ride, and another five-minute walk up from the boathouse. Hans-Otto didn't slack on security. During the walk. Carter counted nine men armed with machine pistols or shotguns. Loping at each man's side was a big German shepherd.
The Sixth Panzer Division would have had a hard time cracking this one, Carter thought.
As he walked between the two men through heavily forested formal gardens, the Killmaster ticked off what he had gleaned from police files about Hans-Otto Voigt.
He had been actively anti-Nazi during World War II. In his twenties he had joined a small elite group in Berlin devoted to overthrowing the Nazis by internal espionage.
Right after the war, he survived by using the same smuggling avenues to form a huge black market. But as well as being a survivor, Voigt was a born leader, cunning and ruthless.
It was only a matter of time before smuggling and the black market were just a small part of his operations. By the late fifties, Voigt was the acknowledged kingpin of crime in West Berlin and northern Germany. And since then he had been able to keep that empire intact.
The villa was built on a rise directly in the center of the island. The walkway up from the water was a long, winding affair that passed outlying houses, gardens, and several more gun-toting guards.
Architecturally, it was a mishmash of Rhine River castle and mock English Tudor. It appeared to have been built by some long-dead or crazed Teutonic knight rather than by a modern, living gangland overlord.
One of two huge, brass-studded oak doors opened, and Carter stepped into a massive hallway. Erich Voigt awaited him.
"I want your gun."
The only way you'll get it is to take it."
The younger man stepped forward. Carter didn't move. He smiled.
"You bastard."
"I didn't come to listen to you whine, Erich."
"My father is in the hothouse. This way."
Carter followed him through a maze of corridors, glancing into well-furnished rooms as they moved. There were fresh-cut flowers everywhere.
From the outside, the house had loomed large. Inside it was enormous. Even though it was comparatively new, it had a sprawling, solid aura of aged splendor; Carter credited it to good taste in construction and the dominant use of expensive woods and stone for building materials.
Erich led him through wide, open French doors into a tiny Eden, completely surrounded by a high, immaculately clipped myrtle hedge. The hedge surrounded a sea of camellias, oleander, carnations, and myriad botanical marvels Carter couldn't name.
Above and around the whole was glass, keeping out the river breezes, the city smells, and keeping the interior what it was… a hothouse.
In the middle of the sea of flowers sat an ornate fountain. Beside the fountain was a table and four chairs. One of the chairs was occupied by a short, wide man. The face was grizzled with age but still handsome in the chiseled Teutonic mold. The eyes were piercingly blue under heavy dark brows that didn't match the mane of steel-gray hair.
"Are you Carter?" The voice was growlingly husky, as if he had polished off a carton of cigarettes within the last hour.
"I'm Carter."
"A few years ago I would have just had you shot and buried in the Havel."
"A few years ago I would have dealt directly with you and would not have had to deal with the boy."
At the word boy, Erich came forward with his fists clenched.
"Erich, sit down," the old man hissed. "He's right."
Erich sat. So did Carter. Hans-Otto leaned forward, a glint of impishness in his hard blue eyes. "You like my garden?"
"Lovely. The flowers are beautiful."
"Good. If you die tonight, I will see you get the finest bouquet. Why do you cost me so much money?"
"Because I wanted to trade with you, and your son has stone ears."
"So. What do you have? What do you want?"
Carter hefted the briefcase to the table and opened it. "I have Oskar Heading."
The old man rifled through the papers quickly, but Carter could tell that he didn't miss a thing. When he was through, he slapped the case closed and, in the same movement, backhanded Erich across the face.
"Dummkopf!"
"Papa…"
"Shut up! Get out of my sight!" When the younger Voigt was gone, Hans-Otto turned his gaze back to Carter as he tapped the case. "Who are you?"
"Somebody important."
"You must be, the way you turn my people upside down. This" — he tapped the case harder — "this, I would kill for. Who do you want killed?"
"Herr Voigt" — Carter slowly lit a cigarette, speaking in a low, modulated tone — "if I want someone killed, I'll do it myself."
Voigt's hard blue eyes squinted, then he nodded. "Ja, I believe you would."
"I want information, and a body… live, if possible. I want to know who hired him, and who the shooter is who tried for the American, Stephan Conway."
"I didn't hire him."
"I wouldn't be here if I thought you had. When you find out who the shooter is, I want your help locating and getting him."
"Agreed. What else?"
"I don't know yet. Maybe something… maybe nothing."
Hans-Otto was a man of quick decisions. The old eyes blinked once and the big head came up with a jerk. "Erich!"
"Yes?"
"Get me a telephone out here, and some beer. What kind of beer do you want. Carter?"
"Dutch, it costs more."
"Dutch beer! And move!"
Carter heard the younger man sprint into the house, and he leaned back in his chair. His hunch was right. If anyone could find out who and where the shooter was, it was Hans-Otto Voigt.
Anna Palmitkov rapped on the door. It was opened at once, but only a crack. No light was lit and the face in the crack was in shadows.
"Yes?"
"Fräulein Rhinemann?"
"Yes."
"I just talked to you on the phone."
"Come in, hurry!"
Anna Palmitkov darted through the door. It was quickly closed and locked behind her. As soon as the lights were turned on, she walked down into the sunken living room and turned to face the other woman with a flourish.
"Who are you?" Ursula asked, clutching a half-empty glass of whiskey between her two trembling hands.
"Who I am is of no consequence. I assure you, I have the material I mentioned so vaguely on the telephone."
Anna slipped the big bag she carried from her shoulder. She rummaged in it and withdrew three sheets of paper and a manila folder.
"Sit down," she said curtly, glancing up at the other woman.
Ursula flushed. "This is my flat. How dare you…"
The Russian woman's hand arced like a whip and struck like a darting snake. The flat palm cracked against the side of Ursula's head, sending her sprawling and the glass of whiskey crashing against the mantel.
"Now will you listen?" she hissed.
"Yes." Tears were streaming down Ursula Rhinemann's beautiful face. Her body shook, and she was sure she wouldn't be able to hold down what little food she had in her stomach. "What do you want?"
"Nothing, I assure you, that you will not be able to give. Now, I am going to tell you a story…"
For the next hour, Ursula listened. The more she listened, the whiter and sicker she became.
She knew! This woman knew practically the whole thing, almost down to the time when she and Stephan had first conceived the plan!
"This is the confession of a woman named Gertrude Klammer. Small, by itself, but a link. Another, stranger, link is this statement by a minor illegal arms dealer, Demetrius Baclevic."