Then he told me to come away with him. I was in a daze. I fumbled in the dark, picking my things up, and went with him. God help me, without even knowing if the girl he’d choked was dead I left with him.” “And no one saw you?” Hood asked. “No one heard and came to see what was happening?” “Perhaps they heard, but no one cared. Students were always shouting about something, or screaming because of the rats by the river. Perhaps they thought the girls were making love by the river. The shrieks— it could have been that.” “What did you do after you left?” Hood asked.
“We went to Gerard’s father’s estate in the south of France and remained there for several weeks. Gerard asked me to stay, to go into business with them. He really did like me. We were of different social backgrounds, yet he respected my views. I was the only one who told him that he was a hypocrite, living in luxury and enjoying his family’s money while admiring Trotsky and Marx. He liked the way I challenged him. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stay with him.
So I returned to Germany. But I found no peace there, and so…” He stopped, looked down at his fists. They were shaking and he relaxed them.
“So I went to the French Embassy in Germany,” Hausen said, “and I told them what had happened. I told them everything. They said they would question Gerard, and I told them where they could find me. I was willing to go to jail, just to appease my guilt.” “And what happened?” “The French police,” Hausen said bitterly, “are different from other police forces. They look to settle cases, not solve them, particularly when they involve foreigners. To them, these were unsolved murders and they would remain unsolved.” “Did they even question Gerard?” “I don’t know,” Hausen said. “But even if they did, think of it. A word of a French billionaire’s son against that of a poor German boy.” “But he had to have explained why he left school suddenly—” Hausen said, “Hen Hood, Gerard was the kind of man who could convince you, who could really convince you, that he left school because Trotsky’s Mexican speeches were omitted from a text.” “What about the parents of the girls? I can’t believe they let it go at that.” “What could they do?” Hausen asked. “They came to France and they demanded justice. They petitioned the French Embassy in Washington and the American Embassy in Paris. They offered rewards. But the girls’ bodies were returned to America, the French turned their backs on the families, and that was that, more or less.” “More or less?” There were tears in Hausen’s eyes. “Gerard wrote to me several weeks later. He said he would return some day, to teach me a lesson about cowardice and betrayal.” “Other than that, you didn’t hear from him?” “Not until today when he phoned me. I went back to school, here in Germany, ashamed and consumed with guilt.” “But you hadn’t done anything,” Hood said. “You tried to stop Gerard.” “My crime was remaining silent immediately afterwards,” Hausen said. “Like the many who smelled the fires at Auschwitz, I said nothing.” “There’s a matter of degree, don’t you think?” Hausen shook his head. “Silence is silence is silence,” he said. “A killer is at large because of my silence. He now calls himself Gerard Dominique. And he has threatened me and my thirteen-year-old daughter.” “I didn’t realize you had children,” Hood said. “Where is she?” “She lives with her mother in Berlin,” Hausen said. “I’ll have her watched, but Gerard is elusive as well as powerful.
He can bribe his way to people who disapprove of my work.” He shook his head. “Had I yelled for the police that night, held Gerard, done something, I might have known peace over the years. But I didn’t. And there was no way I could atone other than to fight the hatred that had driven Gerard to kill those girls.” Hood said, “You had no contact with Gerard, but did you hear anything about him over the years?” “No,” said Hausen. “He vanished, just like your Nancy.
There were rumors that he had gone into business with his father, but when the old man died Gerard closed down the airbus parts factory that had been so profitable for so many years. He was rumored to have become the power behind many executive boards without ever being on any, but I don’t know that for a fact.” Hood had other questions for the man, questions about the elder Dupre’s business, about the identities of the girls, and about what Op-Center could do to help Hausen with what was shaping up as a serious case of blackmail. But his attention was snatched away by a soft voice that called him from behind.
“Paul!” Hood turned, and the glow of Hamburg seemed to dim.
Hausen and the trees and the city and the years themselves disappeared as the tall, slender, graceful angel walked toward him. As he found himself once again standing in front of a movie theater, waiting for Nancy.
Waiting for the girl who finally had arrived.
CHAPTER THIRTY Thursday, 4:22 P.M., Hanover, Germany
Bob Herbert had not phoned Mike Rodgers when he first saw the white van.
It had appeared in his rearview mirror while he drove around the city, trying to figure out what to do. He’d paid little attention to the vehicle as he tried to come up with some way of getting information about the kidnapped girl.
Though the straightforward approach had failed, he’d been thinking that bribery might work.
When Herbert turned off Herrenhauser Strasse onto a side street and the van turned as well, he gave it a second look. In the front and back of the van were faces wearing ski masks. Glancing at the map and speeding up, Herbert took a few sharp turns just to make sure the van was following him. It was. Someone must have watched him go and sent the goon platoon after him. As the city of Hanover darkened with the fast-falling night, Herbert phoned Op-Center.
Alberto put him through to Mike Rodgers.
That was when Herbert asked for fast help or a short prayer.
“What’s wrong?” Rodgers asked.
“I had a run-in with some neo-Nazi back at a beer house,” Herbert said. “Now they’re after my ass.” “Where are you?” “I’m not sure,” Herbert said. He looked around. “I see lime trees, a lot of gardens, a lake.” A large sign flashed by.
“Thank you, God. I’m at a place called Welfengarten.” “Bob,” said Rodgers, “Darrell’s here. He’s got the phone number of the local police. Can you write it down and call?” Herbert reached into his shirt pocket for a pen. He doodled on the dashboard to get the ink flowing. “Shoot,” he said.
But before he could write it down, the van rammed his fender. As the car bolted forward, the shoulder strap of the seatbelt tore into his chest. Herbert swerved to avoid a car in front of him.
“Shit!” he yelled. He drove around the car and sped up.
“Listen, General, I’ve got troubles.” “What?” “These guys are ramming me. I’m going to pull over before I cream a pedestrian. Tell the Landespolizei I’m in a white Mercedes.” “No, Bob, don’t stop!” Rodgers yelled. “If they get you into the van, we’re screwed!” “They’re not trying to kidnap me!” Herbert shouted back. “They’re trying to kill me!” The van smashed into him again on the left rear side.
The right side of the car hopped onto the sidewalk, where Herbert nearly clipped a man walking his terrier. Herbert managed to swerve back onto the road, though his right front fender clipped a parked car. The collision tore the fender down and caused it to scrape noisily against the asphalt.
He stopped. Afraid the chrome might rend his tire, Herbert threw the car into reverse to try to rip the fender free. It came loose with a slow groan and a loud squeal, then clattered to the street.
Herbert looked in his side mirror to make sure he could pull away again. The scene was surreal. Pedestrians were running and cars were now racing past. And before he could safely return to the now-disordered flow of traffic, the van pulled up beside him, on the left. The figure in the passenger’s seat faced him. He stuck a submachine gun from the open window and trained it on the car.
He fired.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE Thursday, 4:33 P.M., Hamburg, Germany
Dressed in a short black skirt and jacket, with a white blouse and pearls, Nancy looked as if she were walking from a mirage. Hazy, slow, rippling.
Or maybe she looked that way because of the tears in Hood’s eyes.
He winced, shook his head, made fists, felt a thousand different emotions with every step she took.