ledger. Ben tipped him generously for the recommendation, though when he
called the number, he reached a groggy-sounding man who begged off,
saying he had another job today. He did, however, have a friend, Gaspar
Another call. It was afternoon before he finally met with Caspar, a
dyspeptic middle-aged man, who sized Ben up quickly and spelled out his
exorbitant terms. In truth, the pilot made a handsome living flying
businessmen over the border into Switzerland without leaving a trace in
the computers. There were times when certain drug lords or African
potentates or Middle Eastern operators needed to do some banking in both
countries without the authorities watching. The pilot, who seemed to
wear a perpetual sneer, assumed that Ben was up to something similar.
Half an hour later, preparing for their departure, Caspar had learned of
a storm over St. Gallen and wanted to cancel the flight, but several
more hundred-dollar bills had persuaded him otherwise.
As the light twin-engine propeller plane bounced through the turbulence
over the eastern Alpine ranges, the taciturn pilot became almost
voluble. “There’s a saying where I come from. Es 1st besser reich zu
leben, a/5 reich zu sterben.” He chuckled. “It’s better to live rich
than to die rich …”
“Just fly,” Ben said dully.
He wondered whether his precautions were overly elaborate, but the truth
was that he had no idea what the reach was of the people who had
murdered his brother, or who had assigned the man he’d known as Jimmy
Cavanaugh to try to kill him in Zurich. And he did not intend to make
things easy for them.
In St. Gallen, Ben had hitched a ride with a farmer delivering
vegetables to the markets and restaurants. The farmer surveyed him with
bafflement; Ben explained that his car had broken down in the middle of
nowhere. Later on, he rented a car and drove to the remote farming
community of Mettlenberg. If the flight had been bumpy, the drive
wasn’t much better. The rain poured down, sheeting the windshield of
the rented car. The car’s wipers flicked back and forth quickly but
uselessly, for the rain was too hard. It was late afternoon, and
already it was dark. Ben could barely see a few feet in front of him.
It was probably fortunate that the traffic in both directions on this
small rural road was heavy, inching along.
He was in a remote, sparsely populated area in the northeastern part of
Switzerland, in the canton of St. Gallen, not far from Lake Constance.
From time to time, when the rain momentarily abated, he was able to see
the large working farms on either side of the road. Herds of cattle,
flocks of sheep, acres of cultivated land. There were large primitive
buildings containing stables and barns and evidently living quarters as
well, all under one large double-thatched roof. Beneath the eaves were
woodpiles stacked with geometric precision.
As he drove he experienced a whole range of emotions, from fear to the
deepest sadness to an almost violent anger. Now he was approaching a
cluster of buildings in what had to be the village of Mettlenberg. The
rain had slowed to a drizzle. Ben could see the ruins of a once
fortified medieval town. There was an old granary and an early
sixteenth-century church of St. Maria. There were picturesque,
well-preserved stone houses with decorated timber faces, gables, and
half-hipped red roofs. It was barely a village at all.
Peter had said that Liesl, his lover, had applied for an opening at a
small hospital here. He had checked; there was only one hospital for
kilometers around: the Regwnahpital Sankt Gallen Nord.
A short distance past the “town center” was a relatively modern building
of red brick, cheaply constructed, Ben guessed, in the 1960s. The
regional hospital. He found a Migros gasoline station where he parked
the car and made a call from the pay phone.
When the hospital switchboard operator answered, Ben said slowly, in
English, “I need to speak to the pediatrician. My child is ill.” There
seemed little point in using his tourist German, since he wouldn’t be
able to disguise his American accent, anyway, and a Swiss operator would
know English.
Peter had said that the hospital had hired Liesl because they “needed a
pediatrician,” as if they had none other. Then again, maybe there were
others, but Ben doubted it, not in a hospital as small as this one.
“I will connect you with the eh, the Notfallstation, sir. The emergency
”
“No,” Ben interrupted quickly. “Not the emergency room. I need to
speak directly with the pediatrician. Is there more than one on staff?”
“Just one, sir, but the doctor is not in at this time.”
Just one! Inwardly, Ben exulted; had he found her?
“Yes, a woman named Liesl-something, right?”
“No, sir. There is no Liesl on the staff here as far as I know. The
pediatrician is Dr. Margarethe Hubli, but I tell you, she is not in the
hospital. Let me connect ”
“I must be mistaken. That was the name I was given. Was there a doctor
by the name of Liesl who left recently?”
“Not that I know of, sir.”
Strike out.
He had a thought. There was a chance that Dr. Hubli would know Liesl,
know who she was, where she had gone. This had to be the hospital where
Liesl had gotten a job.
“Is there a number where I can reach Dr. Hubli?”
“I’m afraid I can’t give out her home number, sir, but if you bring your
child into the hospital ”
“Can you page her for me?”
“Yes, sir, I can do that.”
“Thank you.” He gave the number of the pay phone and a false name.
Five minutes later the phone rang.
“Mr. Peters?” a woman’s voice asked in English.
“Thank you for calling, Doctor. I’m an American staying with friends
here, and I’m trying to reach a doctor who I believe was on the staff of
the regional hospital. I’m wondering whether you might know her a woman
named Liesl?”
There was a pause too long a pause. “I don’t know any Liesl,” the
pediatrician said.
Was she lying to protect Liesl? Or was he simply imagining it?
“Are you certain?” Ben persisted. “I was told there was a pediatrician
named Liesl there, and it’s urgent that I reach her. It’s a family
matter.”
“What sort of ‘family matter’?”
Bingo. She had to be protecting Liesl.
“It concerns her… her brother, Peter.”
“Her brother?” The pediatrician seemed confused.
“Tell her my name is Ben.”
Another long silence passed.
“Where are you?” the woman asked.
Barely twenty minutes went by before a small red Renault pulled into the
gas station.
A petite woman en robed in a large military-green rain poncho, wearing
mud-caked jeans and boots, got out tentatively before slamming the car
door shut. She spotted him and approached. She was a real beauty, Ben
could see. Not what he had expected, for some reason. Under the poncho
hood he could see her short glossy dark brown hair. She had luminous
blue eyes and a milky-white complexion. But her face was drawn,
pinched: she looked scared.
“Thanks for coming,” he said. “You obviously know Liesl. I’m her
husband’s twin brother.”
She kept staring at him. “Good Lord,” she breathed, “you look just like
him. It’s, it’s like seeing a ghost.” Her face, a mask of tension,
suddenly crumpled. “Dear God,” she gasped, breaking out in sobs, “he
was so careful! So … many years …”
Ben looked at the doctor, confused.
“He didn’t come back that night,” she went on in a panicked rush. “I
stayed up late, worried, terrified.” She covered her face with her
hands. “And then Dieter came by and told me what had happened …”
“Liesl,” Ben breathed.
“Oh, God!” she wailed. “He was such a–such a good man. I loved him
so much.”
Ben wrapped his arms around her, sustaining her in a great hug of
assurance, and he too felt his tears begin to flow.
Asuncion, Paraguay
Anna was stopped at Customs by a fleshy-faced Paraguayan official in a
short-sleeve blue shirt and tie. From his hair and complexion she could
tell he was, like most Paraguayans, a mestizo, of mixed Spanish and
Indian ancestry.
He sized her up, then tapped her carry-on bag, indicating that he wanted
her to open it. He asked her a few questions in heavily accented
English, then, glowering with apparent disappointment, waved her
through.
She felt furtive, like a criminal casing a joint. Normal federal
regulations required a visiting agent to check in with the local
embassy, but she would do no such thing. The risk of a leak was too
great. If trouble resulted, she’d deal with the protocol breach later.
She found a pay phone in the crowded airport lobby. It took her a
minute or two to figure out how to use her calling card.
A message from Arliss Dupree, demanding to know when she would be