Kelly was the first to arrive. Yvonne came in fifteen minutes later, apologizing profusely.
Kelly had only met her a few times, but she remembered her well. Yvonne was a tiny, sweet-faced lady. Mark had often told Kelly how efficient Yvonne was.
“Thank you for coming,” Kelly said.
“I would do anything I could to—Mr. Harris was such a wonderful man. Everyone at the office adored him. None of us could believe what—what happened.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Yvonne. You were with my husband five years?”
“Yes.”
“So you got to know him pretty well?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Did you notice anything in the last few months that seemed strange? I mean, any change in the way he acted or what he said?”
Yvonne avoided her eyes. “I’m not sure…I mean…”
Kelly said earnestly, “Whatever you say now can’t hurt him. And it might help me understand what happened.” Kelly steeled herself to ask the next question. “Did he ever talk about Olga?”
Yvonne looked at her, puzzled. “Olga? No.”
“You don’t know who she was?”
“I have no idea.”
Kelly felt a sense of relief. She leaned forward. “Yvonne, is there something you’re not telling me?”
“Well…”
The waiter came up to their table. “Bonjour, mesdames. Bienvenue au Ciel de Paris. Je m’appelle Jacques Brion. Notre chef de cuisine a préparé quelques spécialités pour le déjeuner d’aujourd’hui. Avez-vous fait votre choix?”
“Oui, monsieur. Nous avons choisi le Chateaubriand pour deux.”
When the waiter left, Kelly looked at Yvonne. “You were saying…?”
“Well, in the last few days before—before he died, Mr. Harris seemed very nervous. He asked me to get him a plane ticket to Washington, D.C.”
“I know about that. I thought it was just a routine business trip.”
“No. I think it was something very unusual—something urgent.”
“Do you have any idea what it was about?”
“No. Everything suddenly became very secret. That’s all I know.”
Kelly quizzed Yvonne for the next hour, but there was nothing Yvonne could add.
When they had finished their lunch, Kelly said, “I would like you to keep this meeting confidential, Yvonne.”
“You don’t have to worry about that, Mrs. Harris. I won’t tell a soul.” Yvonne stood up. “I have to get back to work.” Her lips trembled. “But it won’t be the same.”
“Thank you, Yvonne.”
Who was Mark going to see in Washington? And there had been the strange phone calls from Germany and Denver and New York.
KELLY TOOK THE elevator down to the lobby. I’ll give Diane a call and see what she’s found out. Maybe—
As Kelly reached the front entrance of the building, she saw them. There were two large men, one on each side of the door. They looked at her, then grinned at each other. As far as Kelly knew, there was no other nearby exit. Could Yvonne have betrayed me?
The men started moving toward Kelly, roughly pushing past the people coming in and out of the building.
Kelly looked around frantically and pressed against the wall. Her arm was bumping something hard. She looked at it, and as the two men moved closer, Kelly picked up the little hammer attached to the fire alarm unit on the wall, broke the glass, and the fire alarm clanged throughout the building.
Kelly yelled, “Fire! Fire!”
There was instant panic. People came running out of offices, shops, and restaurants, headed for the exit door. Within seconds, the hall was jammed, with everyone fighting to get out. The two men were trying to find Kelly in the crowd. When they finally got to where they had last seen her, Kelly had disappeared.
ROCKENDORF’S RESTAURANT WAS getting crowded.
“I was waiting for a friend,” Diane explained to Greg Holliday, the attractive man she had invited to her table. “It looks like she wasn’t able to make it.”
“Too bad. Are you in Berlin on a visit?”
“Yes.”
“It is a beautiful city. I am a happily married man, or I would offer to be your escort. But there are some excellent tours in Berlin that I can recommend.”
“That would be nice,” Diane said absently. She glanced toward the entrance. The two men were walking out the door. They would be waiting for her outside. It was time to make her move.
“As a matter of fact,” Diane said, “I’m here with a group.” She looked at her watch. “They’re waiting for me now. If you wouldn’t mind walking me out to a taxi—”
“Not at all.”
A few moments later, they were heading out the exit.
Diane felt a deep sense of relief. The two men might attack her alone, but she did not think they would attack her with a man at her side. It would attract too much attention.
When Diane and Greg Holliday stepped outside, the two men were nowhere in sight. A taxi was in front of the restaurant, a Mercedes parked behind it.
Diane said, “It was nice meeting you, Mr. Holliday. I hope—”
Holliday smiled and took her arm, gripping it so tightly that Diane felt an agonizing pain.
She looked at him, startled. “What—?”
“Why don’t we take the car?” he said softly. He was pulling Diane toward the Mercedes. His grip tightened.
“No, I don’t want to—”
As they reached the car, Diane saw the men from the restaurant sitting inside, on the front seat. Horrified, Diane suddenly understood how she had been trapped, and she was filled with an overwhelming terror.
“Please,” she said. “Don’t. I—” She felt herself being shoved into the car.
Greg Holliday moved in beside Diane and closed the door.
“Schnell!”
As the car pulled into the heavy traffic, Diane found herself becoming hysterical. “Please—”
Greg Holliday turned to her and smiled reassuringly. “You can relax. I am not going to hurt you. I promise you that by tomorrow, you will be on your way home.”
He reached into a cloth pocket attached to the back of the driver’s seat and took out a hypodermic needle.
“I’m going to give you a shot. It’s harmless. It will put you to sleep for an hour or two.”
He reached for Diane’s wrist.
“Scheisse!” the driver yelled. A pedestrian had suddenly darted in front of the Mercedes, and the driver jammed on the brakes to avoid hitting him. Caught unaware, Holliday’s head slammed against the metal framework of the driver’s headrest.
He tried to sit up, groggy. He yelled at the driver, “What—?”
Instinctively, Diane grabbed Holliday’s hand that was holding the hypodermic needle, twisted his wrist, and plunged the needle into his flesh.
Holliday turned to her in shock. “No!” It was a scream.
With growing horror, Diane watched Holliday’s body go into spasms and then stiffen and collapse. He was dead within seconds. The two men in the front seat turned to see what was happening. Diane was out the door and seconds later in a taxi, headed in the opposite direction.
Chapter 39
THE SOUND OF her cell phone startled her. She picked it up cautiously. “Hello?”
“Hi, Kelly.”
“Diane! Where are you?”
“In Munich. Where are you?”
“On a train to London.”
“How did your meeting with Sam Meadows go?”
Kelly could still hear his screams. “I’ll tell you about it when we meet. Did you get any information?”
“Not much. We have to decide what to do next. We’re running out of options. Gary Reynolds’s plane crashed near Denver. I think we have to go there. Maybe it’s our last chance.”
“All right.”
“The obituary said that Reynolds has a sister living in Denver. She might know something. Why don’t we meet in Denver at the Brown Palace Hotel. I’m flying out of Schoenfeld airport, in Berlin, in three hours.”
“I’ll get a plane out of Heathrow.”
“Good. The room will be booked under the name of Harriet Beecher Stowe.”
“Kelly—”
“Yes.”
“Just…you know.”
“I know. You, too…”
TANNER WAS ALONE in his office, talking on the gold phone: “…and they managed to escape. Sam Meadows is not a happy man, and Greg Holliday is dead.” He was silent for a moment, thinking. “Logically, the only place left for them is Denver. In fact, that’s probably their last option…. It looks as though I’m going to have to handle this personally. They’ve won my respect, so it’s only fitting that I take care of them properly.” He listened, then laughed. “Of course. Good-bye.”
ANDREW WAS SEATED in his office, his mind floating, creating hazy visions. He was lying in a hospital bed and Tanner was saying, You surprised me, Andrew. You were supposed to die. Now the doctors tell me you can get out of here in a few days. I’m giving you an office at KIG. I want you to see how I’m saving your ass. You just wouldn’t learn, would you, you imbecile? Well, I’m turning your penny-ante operation into a gold mine, and you can sit there and watch how I do it. By the way, the first thing I did was to cancel all the bullshit do-good projects you started, Andrew…Andrew…Andrew…