Eagles fly, p.20
Eagles Fly, page 20
He slung the rifle over his shoulder and, carrying the wire clippers in his left hand, started down the dirt road toward the gate.
Each night of his vigil at the South Canal Marina, he had dressed in soft-soled shoes, dark trousers, a dark shirt, and a dark blue jacket. Tonight was no different. There were no silver eyelets on his shoes, no metal belt buckle, nor did his jacket have metal buttons or snaps. The rifle and wire clippers were painted flat black, so there would be no chance reflection to give him away. He was nearly invisible.
The road curved widely to the left, and two hundred meters from the gate Goldmann could hear the low murmur of voices. Two men, laughing and talking.
He did not slow his pace until he caught a glimpse of a soft red light no more than a hundred meters away.
Goldmann set the clippers down, unslung his rifle, got down on one knee, and aimed toward the gate. Two men, one of them smoking a cigarette, came into sharp perspective, although their features were somewhat blurred because of the effect of the infrared viewer.
Goldmann set the crosshairs of the scope in the middle of one man’s chest and squeezed off a shot that sounded like nothing more than a low whump. As the first man fell backward and the other man dropped into a defensive crouch, Goldmann fired another round, this one blowing the top off the second guard’s head.
Goldmann remained on one knee, the rifle’s strap wound around his left arm, as he studied the gate area and beyond it the road leading to the house through the infrared scope. But he could detect no activity.
The two guards he had murdered had been alone on duty, and their deaths had come so swiftly, so unexpectedly, that they had no time to sound an alarm.
He got slowly to his feet and unwound the leather strap from his arm, a sharp pang of conscience stabbing at his gut. This evening he had murdered four men. Without warning. Without mercy or compunction.
But they were Odessa. Nazis. They and their kind had killed millions of people during the war and probably untold thousands since then. When would the killing stop? he asked himself. It was the same question he’d asked himself since Auschwitz in 1945. His answer tonight was the same as it had always been: when the very concept of Nazism and its perpetrators were wiped from the face of the earth, and not before.
Goldmann hid the rifle in the brush alongside the road, picked up the wire clippers, and headed down the road.
The gate, like the perimeter fence that disappeared into the jungle, was ten feet tall and topped with razor wire, but did not appear to be electrified. It opened and closed with an electrical motor, the control for which was in the small guardhouse.
The two men Goldmann had killed lay on their backs, the one’s head blown half away, and the other’s legs crumpled under him at an odd angle. They wore a light gray uniform, but it was difficult to tell if they had any insignia of rank on their sleeves or collar tabs in the one dim red light over the guardhouse.
Goldmann glanced at the dead men, then pushed into the jungle, working his way about fifteen meters along the fence until he was sure this spot could not be seen from the road.
He cut a large hole in the wire fence, pulled back the square of mesh, and crawled through.
Back at the road Goldmann dragged the two bodies to the guardhouse and laid them inside on the floor, closing the door behind him.
Next he scuffled over the blood on the dirt road so that a casual observer might think the blotches were nothing more than oil spots. He pulled the Beretta from his shoulder holster and headed up the road toward the house, only one objective left to complete. Stoeffel.
Goldmann had spent his youth and early manhood in Saarbrücken, near the French border, as a soft-spoken, gentle person for whom violence was something you read about in novels or saw in Wagnerian operas, not something that was real.
He had learned violence, however, the hard, painful way: through its perpetration on himself and his family. Dachau first, and later Auschwitz, hardened his heart, as did the murders of his parents, two brothers, one sister, and his wife.
His education was rounded out in the late forties and early fifties during the fierce struggle for Israel’s independence so that such tasks as the kidnapping of Adolf Eichmann, his trial and execution, as well as the manhunt and assassinations of other former Nazis, did not faze him.
But as much as he wanted to deny the soft inner core of his soul, this evening he could not. Despite everything, he still felt miserable because of what he had done and what he was about to do.
“Murder,” an old Yeshiva Jew had told him during the fight for Jerusalem, “is the most heinous of all acts, no matter the motivation or reason. Life is sacred, my son, and when you take it you are a blasphemer of God’s work.”
The words haunted Goldmann through the years, and as he rounded a bend in the road and the jungle opened up to a vast lawn across which Stoeffel’s mansion sat huge and formidable, they came back to him: “You are a blasphemer of God’s work.” But this night, despite the words, his purpose would not be denied.
Hesitating a moment to make sure there were no guards on duty near the house, Goldmann worked his way along the edge of the jungle, keeping to the shadows, until he came to the rear of the mansion. To the left was a service door, probably leading to the kitchen. At the center of the house were large glass doors opening onto a huge patio. And to the right was one set of French doors that opened onto a small rose garden.
From where Goldmann stood, about fifty meters from the back of the house, he could see that the place had been built on a hill. In the distance to the southeast, he could make out the lights of Buenos Aires brightening the night horizon. The view from the upstairs rooms of the mansion had to be spectacular.
Clicking the Beretta’s safety off, Goldmann ran across the open lawn to the rose garden, where he worked his way through the bushes to the French doors, one of which stood wide open.
The room was dark, but from Goldmann’s position he could see a crack of light showing beneath a door across from the French doors.
He stepped slowly into the room. Suddenly a light came on, momentarily blinding him.
“Welcome to Aerie, Goldmann,” a man said.
Goldmann snapped around, his finger on the trigger, but when he saw who it was, his heart nearly leaped out of his chest. “Asheim,” he said breathlessly.
Asheim grinned maniacally, as if he was drunk or on drugs. Goldmann lowered his gun and took a step forward as a loud report sounded and something hot and terribly strong slammed into his chest, pushing him backward almost off his feet.
Asheim held a gun in his hand. He fired again and Goldmann identified it as a standard-issue Nazi officer’s Luger, then everything seemed to rush away from him, the words “blasphemer of God’s work” racing through his dying brain.
The Conclusion
25
August Kellner’s ancient heart thumped painfully in his chest as he hurried as fast as his spindly legs would carry him to the back door of the house. He was in time to see his son and daughter-in-law disappear across the backyard into a thick stand of trees that led a quarter of a mile away to the university’s maintenance garages.
There was so little time left now. It had come to the point he feared it might. To the point at which his son would stand in the way of the project.
He had known what would have to be done. He had discussed it at length with Oberst Stoeffel more than two years ago. But now that the decision was upon him, he found it no less distasteful and painful than he had two years ago in Buenos Aires.
He turned away from the door, forcing his mind to blank out the deep pain and fear he felt, and willing his legs to carry him back into his study.
Ignoring the pool of blood in which his chauffeur’s body lay, and his secretary, Livermore, who was beginning to come around, the old man picked the telephone off the floor, got a dial tone, and dialed a number that was answered on the first ring.
“Yes,” a man’s voice came over the line.
“Dies ist August,” Kellner said. “Listen to me carefully.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It is time now. The plan must be implemented immediately without delay.”
“Jawohl, mein Herr,” the man snapped. “Do you have the authorization code?”
“This is on my authorization. There is no time to contact Aerie. This is an emergency.”
“Mein Herr—” the man started, but Kellner savagely cut him off.
“You will obey instantly!”
“Yes, sir,” the man snapped. “As you say.”
Kellner slammed the phone down as Livermore sat up. The man’s jaw was broken, and blood seeped from his mouth. He was in pain.
Again the old man got a dial tone, and dialed another number. This one was answered on the third ring.
“Seven-three-one-one,” a woman answered with the extension number.
“I’d like to speak with the vice president, please,” Kellner said, forcing his voice to sound calm and pleasant.
“The vice president is en route at the moment, sir. If you would like to leave a message—”
“Thank you,” Kellner interrupted. “I’ll try him later. It’s nothing that can’t wait.”
“As you wish,” the vice president’s secretary said, and Kellner pressed the phone button down as he heard the sounds of sirens in the distance.
There was so little time. If his son telephoned the FBI within the next half hour, or was captured alive, everything would be ruined. The carefully constructed plan, the myriad of details, the three years of work, would all be for naught.
He got the Washington mobile operator on the line and gave her the number he wanted as the sirens got closer.
Oberst Stoeffel would not accept failure. This plan was to be the salvation of the organization and the implementation of their ideals. One world under one flag. Peace for all time.
It was shortly after ten in the evening when the telephone in the vice president’s limousine buzzed and the husky man, dressed in a tuxedo in the backseat, leaned forward and answered it.
“Mr. Vice President,” a voice the man recognized came over the line.
“August,” he said. “I’m on my way home. What can I do for you?”
“I’m glad I caught you, Mr. Vice President. I’m sending over a book for you to read. Called Eagles Fly.”
Something sharp snapped inside the vice president’s head, and a warm, pleasant feeling spread throughout his body. It was almost sexual in nature, but not so localized. “Yes,” he said, and he smiled.
“I want you to read chapter five tonight. I think you’ll enjoy it.”
“Chapter five,” the vice president said, his heart quickening. “I’ll do that. Thanks for calling, August.”
The phone went dead and a moment later the vice president got the mobile operator on the line and had her ring President Barnes’ private number in the White House family quarters. He had no real idea why he was calling the President, he just knew that it was something he should be doing at this moment.
The phone was answered on the first ring by Barnes himself. “What is it?” the President said gruffly.
In the background the vice president could hear music. “Good evening, Mr. President, this is Stew Engstrom,” he said pleasantly.
Over the past few days the President’s attitude toward Engstrom had changed. The President had become cold and distant, and Engstrom could not understand what he had done to deserve such treatment. Tonight he wanted to make amends.
Although the past seemed blurred in Engstrom’s memory, a phenomenon he could not understand, he knew that his relationship with Barnes all during their campaign against Jimmy Carter and into the early days of the administration had been a warm one. Only lately, since he had returned from the Alaskan trip, had the President been acting differently.
“I’d like to talk to you, Mr. President, about a matter of some urgency.”
“First thing in the morning,” Barnes said. “I’ll inform my appointments secretary.”
Engstrom’s purpose this night was becoming sharper in his mind now, and it was nothing more than to clear the air between himself and the President, to strengthen their relationship, to bring it back to what it had been at the beginning. But it was imperative that this be done immediately.
“Tonight,” he said firmly. “I’m about six blocks away. I could be there in a few minutes.”
“Goddammit, Stewart, can’t this wait until tomorrow?”
Engstrom wanted to say, yes, of course it can wait, but something inside of him was forcing him to act, compelling him to do whatever was necessary to meet with the president this evening in the Oval Office, or better yet, outside in the Rose Garden.
“I would have made a routine appointment for tomorrow if I thought the matter could wait. I’d like to meet you in the Oval Office. Alone.”
“What is this all about?” Barnes asked, curiosity in his voice.
“I can’t say over the phone.”
“All right,” Barnes said after a moment’s hesitation.
It was 10:25 P.M. by the time the thin, well-dressed man parked his nondescript van with Illinois plates in the nearly deserted parking lot behind the Corcoran Gallery of Art on 17th and E Streets.
The weather was clear and the evening pleasantly warm, but the man was sweating lightly as if he was under a strain. The call from Kellner had come unexpectedly. The timetable had called for the operation to be carried out sometime during the next thirty days, not so soon. And at Aerie the man had been told specifically that he would first be given an authorization code that would indicate specifically which escape route had been put into motion for him.
None of that had happened, and the man was frankly worried. Yet he was professional enough to realize that even the best-laid plans could go awry for the most insignificant of reasons, reasons that were humanly impossible to predict.
He sat in the dark van alternately watching the traffic to his right passing along E Street, and the rear service entrance to the art gallery.
Fourteen days ago he had left Buenos Aires, arriving seventy-two hours later in Miami via Mexico City. He had spent that day and the following evening in a luxury hotel, and on the second day put out to sea as the pilot and lone passenger of a thirty-five-foot pleasure boat. Although he had told the people at his hotel and the marina operator that he would return by nightfall, he had no intention of doing that. Instead he scuttled the boat that night off a deserted intra-coastal waterway beach near Key Largo, where he swam ashore and picked up a waiting car parked just off Highway 905 north of the town.
From there he drove back to Miami and took a flight to Chicago under an assumed name. In a downtown parking ramp he picked up a waiting van and identification, and drove directly to Washington, D.C., arriving six days ago at an apartment in Alexandria that had been rented for him a month earlier.
Instead of luxuriating in idleness for the first week or so, as he might have, the man had completed his preparations for this mission within the first few days of his arrival and then had settled back to wait for the call.
He was ready now, his escape from the city the only thing causing him any concern. But even that, he had worked out in his mind in the half hour since Kellner had called.
“If your true identity is discovered, or if your escape is not made good, the entire mission will have failed,” Oberst Stoeffel had warned.
And Oberst Stoeffel was a man to be believed, trusted, and obeyed without question.
The man pushed back his leather glove and looked at his wristwatch, which showed it was exactly 10:30, then got out of the van, went around to the back, and opened the double doors. From within he pulled out a heavy wooden case with brass handles, closed the van doors, and walked across the parking lot to the art gallery service entrance.
Three cars that belonged to the night security guards were parked in the back lot, as the man expected they would be.
One of the vehicles belonged to an older man by the name of Robert Bjorkland, who worked the night shift watching the rear entrances on the ground floor.
The man set the wooden case down and rang the service bell at the door, then pulled out his wallet and opened it to his identification card.
A moment later Bjorkland came to the door and peered out the thick window. “Can I help you, sir?” Bjorkland’s voice came over a tiny loudspeaker set in the wall next to the door.
The man held up his wallet so that Bjorkland could see his identification card and smiled. “My father sent me over with a piece that he didn’t want to keep at home. Asked if I would drop it by and give it to you personally. You are Bob Bjorkland, aren’t you?”
The guard smiled and nodded his head. A moment later the door swung open. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Dr. Kelsey,” he said, ushering the man inside.
“All bad, I suppose,” the man said, lugging the heavy wooden case inside and setting it down on the floor. They were in a small room off the back stairs. Half a dozen television screens monitored several rooms of the gallery.
Bjorkland laughed. “No, sir, your father brags about you all the time,” he said. He went around behind his desk. “We’ll put the case in the night depository. I’ll sign you in first.”
As Bjorkland turned his back, leaned over the desk, and began writing, the man withdrew a length of piano wire from his coat pocket, formed it into a wide loop, stepped forward, dropped the loop over Bjorkland’s head, and yanked hard.
Bjorkland snapped upright as he tried to turn around, his fingers clawing futilely at the wire, his eyes bulging out of their sockets, his tongue protruding from his mouth, and his face turning a deep purple, but there was nothing he could do against the wire.
Within three minutes the guard was unconscious, his windpipe crushed, his brain dying from lack of oxygen, and his bowels involuntarily voiding with a rush.
Calmly the man removed the piano wire loop and placed the guard in his chair, his back toward the door, his head resting in his arms.
