The Lie (20 page)

“Would you like some coffee?”

“No, thank you.”

“How about orange juice and a bun?”

He shook his head.

“Then all you want is to shoot me?”

“No,” said Paulie.

As she slowly worked her hair dry with the towel, Kate’s eyes never left him. “What then?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You seemed sure enough the last time we talked.”

Paulie didn’t respond.

Kate sat down on the same couch, but well apart from Paulie. “I suppose you’ve heard the tapes and seen the pictures Klaus
Logefeld made. Is that it?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“You were not lying. Everything you told me was true.”

“Where are the tapes and pictures now?”

“Exactly where I found them.”

“You didn’t show them to the police?”

Paulie looked at her hair, damp and shiny against her face. “Why would I do that?”

“To punish me.”

“If I wanted you punished, I wouldn’t have left it to the police.”

Sitting carefully apart, they remained unmoving in the silent room. A guilty relief expanded inside Paulie’s chest. It pressed
his heart.

“You once said—” Kate began.

“I know what I once said. I can be as foolish as anyone else. You may have squeezed the trigger, but Klaus Logefeld killed
my parents. Even I can see that now.”

“Then you’re going after Klaus?”

“No. I can’t. If I did, the police would receive copies of those tapes and pictures and I’d just end up hurting you.”

“I was sure you would never forgive me.”

“I tried that: it didn’t work.”

Paulie stared helplessly at her. “I want you too much. I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life.”

“I was afraid of so many things,” she said. “I was afraid of how you felt about Nicko. I was afraid I—“

“To hell with Nicko. All I care about is you.”

“You called me a whore and made me feel like one. I thought of how I’d hurt you and I wanted to die. Forgive me, Paulie. I
know everything I’ve done. What more can I say?”

Paul Walters looked fully at her, a beautiful tragic woman pushed down by the weight of events.

He felt her pressing close, felt all that sweet warmth and softness that was the absolute center of everything when it was
with him, but that he was never able to recall when it was gone.

And somewhere in the middle, afloat in this almost mythic young woman with the hurt, knowing eyes, Paulie
sensed hope begin in him again, sweet and hard to follow. He clung to that hope, flying out over the same darkness he had
been lost in just hours before.

They lay there.

For the moment, Paulie was content just to hold Kate close, to feel her heartbeat. Then the itch returned and had to be scratched.

“Have you ever told Nicko about me?” he asked.

“No.”

Paulie was silent.

“Your name was never mentioned,” said Kate, “and I wasn’t about to bring it up. What could I say? I’ve fallen in love with
the son of the two people I’ve just killed?”

The sun had moved upward and splinters of orange light filtered in and brightened the room.

“A small piece of news,” she said. “I have to go away for a while.”

“Where?”

“Germany. Nicko was able to get me a press pass for the Wannsee Conference. I’ll be doing a daily feature from the scene.”

Paulie needed a moment to let it settle. “Exactly how much do you know about me?” he asked.

“Enough to make me adore you.”

“Apart from that.”

Kate picked up the change in his voice. “Is something wrong?”

“Not really. I’m just curious about how much you may have learned, guessed, or thought you’ve figured out about me.”

“Suddenly?”

Paulie smiled to lighten the moment. “Not so suddenly. But since we’re slowly being forced into new areas of honesty with
each other, I’d like to be sure I haven’t misled you into adoring someone I’m not.”

Kate thought about it for several beats. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with your father, would it?”

“It would.”

“Of course.” Kate sighed. “You’re wondering whether I’ve guessed you’ve taken on some of your father’s ties to the CIA.”

“I had the feeling you weren’t just another pretty face.”

“You could never have found out about Klaus and my parents and me without a certain amount of help from Langley’s database.”

“I deny any such connection.”

“Naturally. But what made you bring it up now?”

“I didn’t want you walking into Wannsee and just seeing me.”

Her eyes went wide. “You mean you’re going to be there too?”

Paulie nodded.

“Why?”

“In case some crazy tries to take out our secretary of state.”

N
ICKO
V
ORELLI WAS AT WORK
in his home office that evening when the call came through on his private line.

“It’s Bruno,” said the voice in German.

“What’s happening?” Nicko asked.

“I have it all together for you.”

“Good,” said Nicko. “Leave a car for me at Tempelhof. I should be there in about four hours. Give me exact directions to where
the car will be and where I’ll be driving to meet you.”

When Nicko hung up, he called his pilot and told him to prepare to take off for Berlin in an hour.

That done, he took twenty thousand German marks from a safe and loaded the money into a bag. Then he told his housekeeper
he would be gone overnight and drove himself to the Naples airport.

Nicko slept through most of the flight; he left the plane refreshed and excited by what lay ahead.
Better than fear
. Although he knew there had to be a bit of that mixed in with it as well.

He found the car Bruno had left for him exactly where it was supposed to be. The driver’s door was unlocked and the keys were
under a mat. Starting the car’s engine, Nicko shifted into drive and headed for the airport exit.

He had the dome light on and his sheet of instructions open beside him. At times he had to stop because he could not read
his own handwriting—he was always impatient, always in
too much of a hurry to properly form the letters. The only thing he never rushed was his lovemaking. He was increasingly grateful
to Kate for making even that much possible.

The thought drew a smile.

Moments later, he crested a hill and made the first left turn into a heavily wooded area. When he had gone about two kilometers,
he made a second left onto a rough dirt trail with heavy growth closing in from both sides.

Moving slowly, Nicko was watching for another dirt trail that would split off to the right. A full complement of nerves seemed
to come alive in his stomach and he could feel them wriggling like a nest of worms.

Then he reached the cutoff he was watching for and turned onto it. His lights picked up a gray sedan waiting about two hundred
meters ahead. Nicko parked and got out.

He heard the soft, night sounds of the forest and watched Bruno come toward him, a bulky man in jeans carrying a roll of blueprints
and an unlit, battery-powered lantern.

The two men nodded and shook hands.

“How far is Wannsee from here?” Nicko asked.

“About a fifteen-minute walk. It’s all woods.” Bruno considered Nicko’s jacket and slacks. “You shouldn’t have worn such good
clothes.”

Bruno led the way. Nicko Vorelli stayed close behind. A three-quarter moon threw a cool, pale blue light, so the lantern was
unneeded.

“You’re fully satisfied with what you have?” Nicko asked.

Bruno answered without turning or changing pace. “Absolutely.”

“Other than yourself,” said Nicko, “how many were involved?”

“Just two.”

“Who are they and what do they do?”

“One is a great-grandson of Wannsee’s original owner. He’s the one who had the old blueprints with the unrecorded alterations.
The other is a retired archivist from the Berlin Hall of Records. He told me about the blueprints and who had them.”

“Who else knows they exist?”

“No one living.”

“Both men said that?”

“Yes.”

“There are no other copies around?”

“Not that they knew of,” said Bruno. “The Hall of Records and everything in it was wiped out during the Allied bombing of
Berlin. But the alterations we’re talking about were never officially recorded anyway.”

Nicko’s foot hit a rock in the high grass, and he stumbled. “What reason did you give them for your interest in the plans?”

“Some nonsense about history, the period, the human condition. What’s the difference? All they cared about was the money.”

They walked for a while in silence. Then Bruno stopped so abruptly that Nicko almost bumped into him.

“This is it.” All Nicko saw was some bushes.

Bruno pushed through into a small, grassy clearing and switched on his lantern. He kneeled, dug both hands into the ground,
and pulled aside a one-meter-square section of sod and leaves resting on a metal base.

A short flight of steps was exposed; the two men descended into a concrete-lined tunnel. The concrete was moist and discolored
but in good condition. The passageway itself was about six feet high and cool, with enough fresh air coming in from an unseen
system of vents to make its sunless odors bearable.

“How far does this go?” said Nicko.

“About five hundred meters.”

“All on Wannsee property?”

“The museum owns all the land. But only the last two hundred meters are fenced in and under security.”

“How many times have you been in here?” asked Nicko.

“This is my fourth trip in as many nights. It wasn’t this good when I started. Most of the vents had to be cleared. Then all
the supplies and gear had to be brought in and set up.”

The tunnel ended against a dark, metal door.

Bruno opened it, his lantern illuminating a large, concrete-lined room with half a dozen bunks, a table and chairs, and a
lot of canned goods and communications gear arranged on racks and shelves.

“Looks like an old air-raid shelter,” said Nicko. “Where does it go into the villa?”

“I’ll show you.”

Bruno went into an empty closet and pressed a wooden panel at the rear. The panel swung back and the two men walked through
the opening.

Nicko saw that they were in the rear section of a cellar storeroom. The wooden panel was of perfectly matched tongue-and-groove
construction: when Bruno returned it to the closed position, no sign of a break was visible.

“Where do I press to open it?” asked Nicko.

Bruno guided his hand to the place and applied pressure. The panel opened. Nicko did it twice alone, studying the way it worked.

“Now let me see where this storeroom leads.”

It led into a basement utility area, then into the museum’s library and reference room.

Not using the lantern, they silently climbed the stairs to the main floor, guided by moonlight slanting in through tall windows.

This was where it would all be happening.

Then they went back down to the hidden room behind its secret panel. In his head, Vorelli could all but hear a wind come whistling
up from out of the earth.

The sensation quickly passed as Bruno laid out his blueprints and diagrams and reviewed everything in Wannsee as related to
their present position.

Next came the electronic gear, with Bruno explaining how reception and transmission would work with each piece of the cellular
system he had brought in. The Berliner had a particular way of breaking down and clarifying everything to the point where
Nicko could almost feel the magic of understanding enter his bloodstream.

A
T
6:30
ON THE MORNING
of September 13 Daniel Archer and Abu Mustafa were fully prepared and in position, with nothing more to do for about two
hours except wait.

As estimated, the president’s motorcade would be passing their chosen location at approximately 8:30. Making allowances for
possible delays, another fifteen or twenty minutes could be added. Since both Archer and Mustafa were prone to worrying about
time, they suffered from visions of the president somehow passing before they arrived.

“Better to wait than be too late,” recited the Palestinian.

They sat behind a cluster of trees and brush in an open, rural area about ten kilometers from the airport. The road on which
the motorcade would be passing lay less than fifty meters away. At the edge of the road and slightly off to the right stood
a small, abandoned farm stand that Abu Mustafa had packed with explosives just before dawn. Using a remote detonator, the
Palestinian had only to hit a single switch as President Dunster’s limousine drove by.

That would take care of it.

A little more than twenty-four hours earlier, the two men had waited for, then carefully watched the presidential motorcade
driving toward Brussels from the airport. A pair of motorcycles appeared first, followed by a police patrol car with flashing
lights and a wailing siren. Then came a black limousine with President Dunster, the Belgian prime minister, and their respective
wives seated inside. A few more cars and
motorcycles were at the rear of the column. But Daniel Archer had stopped paying attention by then.

Holy Jesus
, he had thought,
the women too
.

By 7:30
A.M.
there was a fair amount of traffic on the road, and the sun began burning through the early haze. With the first flights
of the day taking off from Brussels Airport, the roar of their engines grew louder as they passed overhead.

Archer shifted his body in the grass to keep from stiffening.

Mustafa looked at him. “Getting antsy?”

“I never enjoy the waiting.”

“Who does? Try some push-ups.”

“The hell with that. I’m a runner.”

“Then run.”

“I will.” Daniel Archer glanced at his watch. “In about an hour.”

Abu Mustafa gazed off at the fields behind them at a point where the grass ended in a grove of trees. This was where they
had hidden the Saab, and there had been a brief discussion about whether the distance they would have to cover on foot might
turn out to be too great.