"Yes. I'm on Pan Am out of Kennedy at nine forty-five tonight. I was just leaving the apartment to catch the shuttle at National when you called."
"Frankfurt?"
"Yes, with one stop in London. My flight gets into Frankfurt at ten-thirty. I change planes there and arrive in Berlin at one-thirty. Stephan is speaking to an antinuclear convention at one, so I told Delaine I would meet her at the hotel at three."
"All right. What's your Berlin flight number?"
"Nine-two-two."
"I'll be on it."
"Thank you, Nick, so much."
"But if nothing's up, I demand four days of wild night life in Berlin."
"You've got it," she said, managing a laugh at last.
"See you."
"Until tomorrow, then. And thank you again, Nick," she replied, and the line went dead.
"Carpenter!"
"Jesus, Nick, what is it now? I've got four more reports to file before I can eat, and it's almost midnight already."
"Sorry, old buddy. Can you get me out of here to Frankfurt in the morning in time to catch Flight Nine-two-two Pan Am into Berlin?"
"Hold on, I'll check."
Carter sipped another scotch. Minutes later, Carpenter was back.
"You're set. I'll have the tickets messengered to your hotel early tomorrow morning. They'll be at the desk, is that it?"
"That's it."
"What's in Berlin?"
"An old flame," Carter said, and walked out into the Paris night, all thoughts of the two cafes in Montmartre pushed from his mind.
Four
Fräulein Gertrude Klammer held her right wrist with her left to stop it from shaking as she applied lipstick to her thin lips.
She was rather pretty, in a stem, aging way, with light brown hair that she always wore pulled into a severe bun at the back of her head. The skirt and full blouse she wore were just as severe. Over the blouse she wore a baggy cardigan sweater. She had the nervous habit of pulling the cardigan together, as if her primness could hide her quite remarkable figure.
The severity and the primness were acquired characteristics. The remarkable figure had been acquired at the age of twelve, and it was on it that she blamed most of her troubled life.
From the age of thirteen, men had been attracted to Gertrude, and she found it impossible to resist them. And all she ever got from men was a child… and a police record from the prostitution and petty thievery she had engaged in to feed her son.
Now the boy was seventeen and was enrolled in the Hauptdort Academy in Leipzig. He was a gentleman, and he didn't know that his mother ran a back-street dive that catered to pimps and whores, and a small hotel above it that charged for its rooms by the hour.
It was a good job, reliable and secure, even though it did not pay well enough. And for that reason, Gertrude was not above doing a little moonlighting now and then.
The messages, always folded around a five-hundred-mark note, had started arriving three weeks before. It wasn't the first time her mysterious employer had requested her services in such a way.
There were three altogether, simple and typewritten on plain paper and slipped under her door.
We will be requiring your services very soon, read the first one.
A week later the second arrived: A white Mercedes sedan has been reserved for you at Europa car rental. Claim the car at Tegel Airport on Friday afternoon at three o'clock sharp.
Gertrude had picked up the car and returned to the hotel, where she had parked it in an all-night garage just off the Kurfürsten Damm nearby.
She had awakened that Sunday morning in a cold sweat, and it got worse when she spotted the white envelope by her front door.
The message was much longer, but equally as terse in its demands. There was also a key in the envelope.
Tonight, at exactly midnight, you will deliver the car to Number 9 Wiebe Strasse. It is off Moabit Allee in the south of the Wedding section. The house is vacant. The key is to the padlock on the garage door. Park the car inside and leave the padlock key and the car keys on the seat. Beneath two bricks to your left of the door is one half of your bonus, 1000 marks. Lock the door when you leave.
You will receive another message on Tuesday telling you where to pick up the car. When you deliver it back to Tegel, the deposit will be delivered to you in cash. You may keep it as the rest of your bonus.
Needless to say. Fräulein Klammer, you never received any of these messages.
Fräulein Klammer adjusted her sweater, grabbed a purse, and left her top-floor apartment. Halfway down the stairs, she ran into the night chambermaid.
"Guten Tag, Fräulein Klammer," the old woman said, ambling on by her, shoulders bent forward with the load of linen she carried.
"And good morning to you, Marie. Busy?"
"Ja, ja… such sin on the sabbath! This is what we have come to!"
Marie was right. The desk on the floor above the street was crowded. Four girls were standing in line waiting for room keys. Their customers stood shyly in the shadows against the far wall.
"Georg?"
"Ja, Fräulein?"
"I'm going out for a while. I shouldn't be over an hour or so."
"Ja, ja."
She looked into the hotel bar on the street floor. It was crowded, and the air was filled with deafening American rock music as well as the scent of stale beer and cloying, cheap perfume. Holding her breath and pulling her sweater together as she always did, she moved through the smoky room and stepped out onto Roscher Strasse.
To her left, the night sounds of the Ku'Damm blasted at her. She moved quickly toward the sound and the garish neons. Once on the Ku'Damm, she walked past peep shows, all-night strip clubs, and sex movies to the garage.
I know nothing, she thought as she climbed behind the wheel of the Mercedes. I am guilty of nothing but picking up the car and taking it back. What it is used for has nothing to do with me. I am guilty of nothing.
But as Fräulein Gertrude Klammer pulled out onto the Ku'Damm and turned north toward the Wedding section of West Berlin, she vowed that this would be the last time she would accept one of the envelopes and its shady commands.
Dieter Klauswitz throttled the big, powerful BMW back and leaned it left. Skillfully he eluded oncoming traffic on the See Strasse and glided into the Volkspark Rehberge.
Ahead of him stretched the wide motorway that split the park from east to west. To his right was the Plotzensee. About a hundred yards inside the entrance he darted the powerful motorcycle into the trees onto a pedestrian walk and bicycle lane.
There were several strollers who dodged out of his way, but none of them screamed abuses at him. Pedestrians were used to the ill-mannered long-haired youths who rode their powerful machines anywhere they chose.
They only shook their heads and continued their evening stroll as Klauswitz roared around the lake.
But beneath the black leather and helmet with its dark visor was no raw youth with long hair and greasy beard.
Dieter Klauswitz was clean-shaven with cold, intense blue eyes and chiseled Aryan features. His hair was strikingly blond and carefully trimmed. And beneath the leather jacket and leather pants was a toned and athletic body.
Dieter Klauswitz was thirty-eight years old, and an accomplished thief.
As a youth he had honed his body to perfection. His desire, while he was growing up in Bavaria, was to be a great downhill skier.
That had failed.
In place of it he had trained himself in the cross-country biathlon. He schooled himself on every make of rifle known to man and became an expert. His instructors eventually deemed him one of the best marksmen they had ever seen. They also deemed him one of the worst skiers.