Mrs. Beckerman finally answered the door. She was wearing a faded flannel robe. “Bitte?”
“Mrs. Beckerman, I wonder if you remember me? I’m the reporter who’s writing an article on Hans. I’m sorry to bother you so late, but it’s important that I speak to your husband.”
His words were greeted with silence. “Mrs. Beckerman?”
“Hans is dead.”
Robert felt a small shock go through him. “What?”
“My husband is dead.”
“I—I’m sorry. How?”
“His car went over the side of the mountain.” Her voice was filled with bitterness. “The Dummkopf Polizei said it was because he was full of drugs.”
“Drugs?” “Ulcers. The doctors cannot even give me drugs to relieve the pain. I am allergic to all of them.”
“The police said it was an accident?”
“Ja.”
“Did they perform an autopsy?”
“They did, and they found drugs. It makes no sense.”
He had no answer. “I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Beckerman. I—”
The door closed, and Robert stood there alone in the cold night.
One witness was gone. No—two. Leslie Mothershed had died in afire. Robert stood thinking for a long time. Two witnesses dead. He could hear the voice of his instructor at the Farm: “There’s one more thing I want to discuss today. Coincidence. In our work, there is no such animal. It usually spells danger. If you keep running into the same person again and again, or you keep spotting the same automobile when you’re on the move, cover your ass. You’re probably in trouble.”
“Probably in trouble.” Robert was caught up in a series of conflicting emotions. What had happened had to be coincidence, and yet…I’ve got to check out the mystery passenger.
His first call was to Fort Smith, Canada. A distraught woman’s voice answered the telephone. “Yes?”
“William Mann, please.”
The voice said tearfully, “I’m sorry. My husband is—is no longer with us.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He committed suicide.”
Suicide? That hardheaded banker? What the hell is going on? Robert wondered. What he was thinking was inconceivable, and yet…He began making one phone call after another.
“Professor Schmidt, please.”
“Ach! The professor died in an explosion in his laboratory…”
“I’d like to speak to Dan Wayne.”
“Poor devil. His prize stallion kicked him to death last…”
“Laslo Bushfekete, please.”
“The carnival’s closed. Laslo is dead…”
“Fritz Mandel, please.”
“Fritz was killed in a freak accident…”
The alarms were going full blast now.
“Olga Romanchanko.”
“The poor girl. And she was so young…”
“I’m calling to check on Father Patrini.”
“The poor soul passed away in his sleep.”
“I have to speak to Kevin Parker.”
“Kevin was murdered…”
Dead. Every one of the witnesses dead. And he was the one who had found and identified them. Why had he not known what was going on? Because the bastards had waited until he was out of each country before executing their victims. The only one he had reported to was General Hilliard. “We must not involve anyone else in this mission…I want you to report your progress to me every day.”
They had used him to finger the witnesses. What is behind all this? Otto Schmidt had been killed in Germany, Hans Beckerman and Fritz Mandel in Switzerland, Olga Romanchanko in Ukraine, Dan Wayne and Kevin Parker in America, William Mann in Canada, Leslie Mothershed in England, Father Patrini in Italy, and Laslo Bushfekete in Hungary. That meant that the security agencies in more than half a dozen countries were engaged in the biggest cover-up in history. Someone at a very high level had decided that all the witnesses to the UFO crash must die. But who? And why?
It’s an international conspiracy, and I’m in the middle of it.
Priority: Get under cover. It was hard for Robert to believe that they intended to kill him too. He was one of them. But until he knew for certain, he could not take any chances. The first thing he had to do was to get a phony passport. That meant Ricco in Rome.
Robert caught the next plane out and found himself fighting to stay awake. He had not realized how exhausted he was. The pressure of the last fifteen days, in addition to all the jet lag, had left him drained.