At Sword's Point (6 page)

Drummond's deliberations were interrupted by Sandy Morwood sticking his head into the office with a grin.

"Well, I see you survived the excitement." He flourished a computer printout. "This just came in on FLASH," he said, handing it to Drummond. "Thought it might be of interest."

"Thanks, Sandy."

Drummond took the FLASH report and gave it a quick scan. Two things jumped off the page at him: the name of the investigating officer, Markus Eberle, and the location of the crime, near Schloss Dielstein.

"Notice anything unusual?" Morwood asked.

"Yeah, a friend of mine is the investigating officer," Drummond said.

"Really?" No, I meant unusual about the crime." Morwood's voice held a hint of anticipation.

"Not yet," Drummond said as he scanned the report for details.

"Two victims, male and female. The female was totally drained of blood…"

Morwood let it hang on the air, and Drummond looked up at him sharply.

"Thanks, Sandy. I'll add it to my collection," he said.

"Glad to do it. Figure it's a fair trade for the 'Watermelon Killer' you gave me this morning." Morwood smiled and headed back to his office.

Alone at his desk, Drummond reread the FLASH report, then reached for his wallet. Opening it, he pulled out Eberle's card and, looking at his watch, computed the time difference between Los Angeles and Vienna.

Nine hours. That would make it midnight in Vienna. Picking up his phone, he tapped in Morwood's extension.

"Hi, Sandy? Listen, can you do me a favor?"

"Sure," Morwood replied. "What do you need?"

"Can you FLASH Vienna and ask Inspector Markus Eberle to give me a call?" Drummond asked.

"Consider it done," Morwood said. "Anything else?"

"No, just ask Eberle to call my home when he gets in, that's all. Thanks."

After hanging up the phone Drummond picked up the Mossad file and headed out of his office, pausing at Alicia's desk to tell her he was checking out for the day. It was starting to rain as he eased the red BMW 635 out of the underground parking lot beneath Parker Center, and he switched on the windshield wipers as he nosed the car into traffic and headed out toward his home in Malibu. He stopped for a taco on the way, since there was nothing in his refrigerator, and was home in plenty of time to catch the evening news before settling down to read the file.

Drummond was dozing on the sofa,
Die Moldau
on the stereo and his cat Bear meatloafed on his chest, when the phone rang. Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was nearly midnight as he dislodged the cat and reached for the phone. Markus Eberle's voice crackled on the other end.

"John, I got your message on FLASH. Don't tell me you've got my killer locked up in L.A.!" Eberle laughed.

"Nothing so simple, my friend. It's just that there was another murder victim found in the same area about three weeks ago. I wasn't sure if the information had cross-connected." Drummond stretched and sat upright on the couch.

"Another victim?" Eberle said. "How do you know?"

"I met the local police commandant at a dinner at Schloss Dielstein. He thought it was a dump," Drummond replied.

"A dump?" Eberle said.

"Yeah. Killed elsewhere, and the body dumped there in the woods. Figured it as a drug deal that went down heavy." Drummond yawned.

"Who was the commandant you spoke to?"

"Ah, Reidl. Franz Reidl." And as an afterthought, "He drives a Ford."

"What?" Eberle sounded confused.

"Nothing. Guy's name is Reidl. He's a friend of Baroness von Diels."

"Oh, I know him. Old-line aristocratic family. He's a good cop, though. I'll give him a follow-up call. Can't be that many homicides in his jurisdiction," Eberle said.

"Well, I thought it might help," Drummond said.

"Every little bit. So, how is the world treating you?"

"Not so hot. Had the Mossad in my office today."

"The Mossad," Eberle said. "They are not very popular in Austria. What are you doing working with them?"

"I'm not. They came in trying to prove that I was involved in some sort of Nazi cover-up of a murder in Vienna." Drummond strained to pick up some hint of a reaction in Eberle's voice.

"What murder?" Eberle asked.

"That suicide we visited in…"

"Oh, that." Eberle snorted. "That dumb shit Sacher's case. Well, if anyone asks, the official police verdict is murder by persons unknown. I did the follow-up myself. Herr Stucke invited a couple of punkers up to his room. My guess is that the old man was a queer and was looking for some sex. What he got was murdered. Not too uncommon an occurrence here in Vienna. If you want an official transcript, I'll send one to your embassy and they can forward it to you."

"Thanks, Markus. I'll let you know if I need it."

"Sure. Anything else I can do for you?" Eberle asked.

"Yeah. I'd like to open a bank account, preferably with a bank that has an office in Luxembourg City," Drummond said.

"No problem. I'll have my kid sister set it up. She's a manager at Vienna Credit Bank." Eberle chuckled. "They launder all the important money in Europe."

"Okay. Have her fax me at the office. The number should be on the FLASH copy."

"Shall do. Is there anything else?" Eberle's voice crackled slightly on the line.

"No," Drummond said. "That's all."

"In that case, thanks for the tip. I'll call if it leads to anything."

"You do that. Talk to you later. Bye, Markus."

Drummond hung up the phone. Standing up, he pulled off his polo shirt and headed into the bathroom for a quick shower before turning in for the night.

Outside, three men were huddled together in the back of a white Chevrolet van. As Drummond's phone line went dead, a pudgy, bald man in a tan suit and loud tie switched off the tape recorder and turned to his two companions.

"Okay, let's bring in the cop," he said.

Nodding, the two Mossad agents slipped out of the van and headed across the road toward Drummond's beachfront condo. Crouching below the wall that surrounded the exclusive community, Trostler and Meier carefully unrolled a large rubberized sheet. Swinging it like a matador's cape, Trostler stood up and tossed it skillfully onto the top of the wall. Then, cupping his hands, he took Meier's foot and hoisted him up onto the rubber pad.

Lying flat on his stomach, Meier reached down, grabbing Trostler by the wrists. With a powerful heave, he lifted Trostler even with the top of the wall. Then, with his partner balanced on his elbows, Meier dropped into the compound.

Trostler paused only long enough to hear the muffled thump of Meier dropping to
the other
side of the wall. With the grace of a gymnast, Trostler swung his legs up and over the wall, sitting on the edge for a moment to take his bearings before dropping down to join Meier in the shadows near the wall.

Ahead of the two Mossad agents, a private security guard paused to clock in on his rounds. As the guard fumbled to get the security key into his clock, Meier pulled a tubular slingshot from his belt. Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew a leather ball about the size of a walnut and placed it in the slingshots pouch, then held his arm out rigidly in front of him and drew a bead on the back of the guard's head. Meier took a deep breath, and then let part of it out, steadying his aim as he released the pouch from his grip.

The sand-filled leather ball smacked into the guard's head like a blackjack. Clutching his clock, the guard toppled forward into the shrubbery below Drummond's condominium. The two men rolled the body into the bushes next to the building and, using one of the security lights as an impromptu ladder, climbed up onto Drummond's balcony.

Drummond turned off the taps in the shower and pushed the glass door open, reaching for the towel hanging on the wall. Grabbing Drummond's wrist, Trostler jerked him forward, sending him sprawling on the tile floor. Drummond tried to get up, but a sweep of Trostler's foot caught him across the ankle and he went down again. Dropping down onto one knee, Trostler pinned both of Drummond's arms behind his back as Meier bent down with a syringe.

Drummond felt a sharp jab of pain in his neck, and then a stinging numbness shot through his body. He tried to get up, but a velvet blackness enveloped him, pinning him to the tile floor with a grip far stronger than that of the Mossad agent.

Warm sunlight flooded the courtyard of Wewelsberg Castle where a few young men and women lounged against their backpacks, waiting for the youth hostel to open for the day. Inside, the ancient caretaker carefully inspected the four small dormitories, the shower rooms, and the communal kitchen and dining hall. All was in order, as usual, but it was a far cry from what it had looked like when he first visited it in 1936. The restoration then nearing completion had suffered during the war and in half a century thereafter, though at least the castle had survived—and some of the work.

He sighed as he remembered that day. He had been about five and his father had brought him to the castle to show his young son the heavily carved paneling on which he had labored for the past year: dark German oak, carved with acorns and oak leaves, swastikas and the
sigrunen
of Himmler's SS. Not all of the castle had been graced with Sepp Dornberger's artistry, of course, and much of his work had perished, but some survived.

The old man glanced up at the ceiling, thinking of the room high above this one, never open to public view— the room in which his father had taken special pride. He could see it in his mind's eye as clearly as he had that wonderful day.

The room was circular, with a high-vaulted gothic ceiling. The thick stone walls were pierced at regular intervals by narrow arrow-slit windows, which allowed the sunlight access through blood-red stained glass, filling the room with a warm sanguine glow. In the middle of the room was a round table, its rim inlaid with ivory runes. A gold chalice, finely wrought with runic inscriptions and encrusted with rubies and emeralds, stood in the center of the table, radiant in the red light that bled in through the high-set windows.

Twelve heavily carved chairs, each like the throne of some legendary Teutonic god, were arranged with military precision around the table. Lying on the table in front of each of the high-backed chairs was an SS dagger, its broad Damascus blade alive with red-washed golden runes: Blood and Soil, Honor and Loyalty.

It was the most beautiful room the young Stephen Dornberger had ever seen, and its awesome dignity far surpassed that of the parish church.

"Papa," he had said, when at last he found his voice, "it is so very beautiful…"

"Yes, Stephen, and its beauty will last a thousand years," his father had replied.

Stephen had been going to say more to his father when a handsome young SS officer entered the room.

"So, Sepp, showing the young one your work?"

"Yes, Obersturmführer Kluge. I was telling my boy that it would last a thousand years."

Kluge bent down to young Stephen.

"A thousand years, lad, will only be the beginning. Our race and our Führer are immortal. Remember that." Kluge had tousled the boy's thick blond hair, then stood up and walked out of the room. That had been their first meeting, but not their last. No, by no means had that been their last meeting.

The old man looked around him. That had been more than a half century ago, and yet the memory of that day still sent a tingle of excitement through him. He had been too young to fight in the war, although after the bomb fell on their cottage, killing his mother and father…

He looked at the worn face of the watch on his scarred left arm. It was time to open the youth hostel.

Shuffling over to the door, he threw back the bolt and pulled it open on its heavy iron hinges. The hot sunshine of late September spilled into the cool darkness of the castle, and Stephen Dornberger retreated behind a small counter stacked with towels.

The young people, students mostly, lined up in front of the desk and waited patiently while the old man scrutinized their IDs, collected eight marks, and gave them a towel and a key to one of the bedside lockers in the first floor dorms. They were a remarkably common lot of young men and women, and Dornberger dismissed them from his mind as quickly as he handed them their towels.

Finally, with the last of the student herd checked in, Dornberger came from behind his desk and headed out to the courtyard of the castle. He had just taken down the small sign with zimmer neatly painted on it when a young man in his early twenties came riding up on an old Zundapp motorcycle. Cutting the engine a hundred yards from the castle, he glided silently into the courtyard, stopping a few feet from Dornberger.

"Good afternoon, sir," he said. Dornberger immediately noticed the young man's use of the very formal address. "Do you think I might have a bed here tonight?"

Dornberger looked him over very carefully before speaking. "Yes, if you don't mind being in a dorm by yourself."

He pointed toward the far wall of the courtyard. "You may park your machine over there." Dornberger turned and headed back to his desk in the castle.

Dismounting, the young man swung one of his long legs over the back of the cream-colored motorcycle and pushed it over to where Dornberger indicated he should park. Opening one of the panniers on the back of the bike, he pulled out a knapsack and headed into the castle.

"This is quite a building," he said, as he handed over his ID card and eight marks to Dornberger.

"Yes, it is very old—" Dornberger read the name off the ID card "—Herr von Tupilow."

Anton von Tupilow flushed slightly at the older man's formal deference, and Dornberger noticed a thin white scar running the width of his cheek. Mentally he made a quick appraisal of von Tupilow. Tall, well-built but not muscular. Aristocratic name and a dueling scar. Things were looking promising.

He handed the young man a towel and key, then turned and took a key ring from a hook behind his desk.

"Come with me and I'll open up another dorm."

Von Tupilow followed Dornberger up an ancient stone stair past the first-floor men's dorm.

"You will be on the next floor, but you will have to use the showers and toilets on this level," Dornberger said as they continued up to the vacant dormitory.

He unlocked the massive oak door and pushed it open. There were two sets of bunk beds in the dorm, with small lockers placed on either side. Walking over to the farthest bunks, Dornberger unrolled the top mattress and pulled it into place.

"There you are," he said, turning back to von Tupilow. "If you need anything, I'll be in my flat on the other side of the courtyard."

Pushing past the young aristocrat, he headed down the stone stairs and back to his apartment. Once inside, he walked straight to his desk and picked up the telephone, pausing only long enough to check an address book for the number before he began dialing.

* * * *

Thousands of tiny golden dust motes drifted through the bright slashes of sunlight stabbing into the gloom of the indoor riding school. Ankle-deep in the clean, fresh sawdust, ten young men stood at rigid attention while a stocky, middle-aged man with an eye-patch prepared them for their first lesson in the use of the hand-and-a-half broadsword he held before them.

"The sword is the only fit weapon for a knight, and it is the weapon which marks your passage into the blood-brotherhood of our order." Scharführer Baumann pointed his sword at the man on the extreme left of the line. "You, step forward."

The young man came toward Baumann with his sword at the ready. Halting a few paces in front of him, he snapped to attention and, raising his sword to his face, saluted the one-eyed soldier.

Seated on a quiet white stallion at the far end of the arena, Kluge watched with satisfaction as Scharführer Baumann put the younger man through the paces of sword drill. Only the soft purring of the telephone on the wall eventually distracted him from the lesson.

Almost imperceptibly, Kluge shifted his weight in the saddle, then pressed his left leg against the side of his horse, just forward of the girth. The Lipizzan responded at once, turning smoothly on its haunches. Kluge gave a gentle squeeze to the stallion's flanks, and it trotted obediently along the side of the riding school in the direction of the phone. With just the gentlest pressure on the reins,

Kluge halted his mount within arm's reach of the still-purring instrument and took if in a gloved hand.

"Kluge here."

On the other end of the line, Dornberger's mouth went dry, and he had to clear his throat before speaking.

"Herr Sturmbannführer, I think I may have another candidate for you."

Kluge listened intently for a few minutes, and after thanking Dornberger, replaced the telephone receiver on its cradle. Turning his horse toward the center of the riding school, he brought his heels back into its flanks while releasing the pressure on the reins. The horse responded to the rider's command and went immediately into an elegant passage, floating in midair between each extended stride.

Touching the reins, Kluge halted the white horse in front of Baumann. The one-eyed warrior snapped to attention, saluting his master. Kluge returned the salute with a nod.

"We may have a new postulant at Wewelsberg," Kluge said, reaching down to pat his horse on the neck.

"I will see to it at once,
Hochmeister
," Baumann said, a tight smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

Kluge sat back in his saddle and, without another word, trotted out of the riding school and into the warm afternoon sun.

* * * *

The painting of the sad-eyed clown kept slipping out of focus. Drummond tried to concentrate on the saccharine figure of the circus hobo, but found that his head kept slipping down onto his chest. From what seemed to be a long way off, he heard the sound of men talking, but he couldn't make out what they were saying. Finally, using all the strength he could muster, he managed to rotate his head enough to see the four men sitting by the door of the cheap motel room. Squinting, Drummond recognized three of them.

Trostler and Meier had their backs to the door, drinking coffee, while the third Israeli "diplomat" sat hunched over the table deep in conversation with another, much older, man.

"Hey, Gluckman. I think our boy's coming to," Meier said, as he watched Drummond's head roll back onto his chest.

The short man in the tan suit stood up from the table and walked over to where Drummond was bound to the chair with silvery duct tape. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small black case and, unzipping it, produced a disposable syringe filled with a pale pink fluid.

Drummond vaguely felt the needle jab into the vein in his forearm and in a distracted way watched as Gluckman slowly injected the stimulant into his system.

"How long?" Trostler asked.

"About three minutes. I could have given him more, but I doubt he'd be able to survive the systemic shock of coming out that fast. He'll feel bad enough, as it is." Finished with the injection, Gluckman stood up and put the syringe back in its case.

Drummond could feel the stimulant burning its way up his arm as it worked its way into his circulatory system. There was a loud rushing sound hammering at his brain as the drug dragged him from his torpor and slapped him into consciousness. As Drummond regained his senses, he was aware of a pungent, nearly sweet smell that seemed to cling to him like the cold wet seat of the chair he was taped to. His mind clearing, Drummond realized that he was sitting naked in his own excrement and urine.

Gluckman looked into Drummond's face. "So tell me, Mr. Drummond, will you be so kind as to answer a few questions?"

Drummond wanted to tell Gluckman to go to hell, but found himself nodding in agreement instead.

"Good," the chubby Mossad agent said. "Then we can take off some of this tape." He nodded at Trostler, who reached over and ripped off the silver tape that covered Drummond's mouth.

"I'm sorry you are in such a humiliating state, but its one of the side effects of the drug my associates used to subdue you earlier this evening." Gluckman managed an insincere smile. "As soon as you've answered my questions, you can clean up and go home." He smiled again. "Give me a hard time and you're dead."

Drummond looked around the room at Trostler, Meier, and the other man, and decided that giving them a hard time was the last thing he wanted to do.

"Okay," he croaked. "What do you want to know?"

"I want to know everything you know about this man…" Gluckman held up a faded photograph of a man in a Nazi uniform. "SS Sturmbannführer Wilhelm Kluge."

* * * *

It was late afternoon when the Mercedes 500SLC pulled to the side of the road just a few miles outside the small German town of Paderborn. The door on the passenger side opened, and two young men in hiking boots, short pants, and thick pullovers climbed out and went to the back of the car. From inside, the driver released the trunk latch so the two young men could retrieve a pair of knapsacks. Slinging these on their backs, they set off purposefully in the direction of Wewelsberg Castle, little more than a kilometer away. In the rearview mirror, the driver of the Mercedes watched until the two hikers vanished into the forest. Adjusting his eye-patch, Scharführer Baumann then shifted the dark blue Mercedes into gear and drove on into town.

Darkness was just settling when the hikers arrived at the castle. As they walked into the courtyard they saw Stephen Dornberger sitting on a stool, smoking a crooked Dutch cigar.

"Hello, Uncle Stephen," the taller one said. "Have you got a room for me and Erik?"

"Yes," Dornberger said. "The same as last time."

"Anyone else in there?" Erik asked.

"Just you and Karl and the young man I phoned about." Dornberger blew a stream of smoke toward the pale slice of moon showing from behind ink black clouds.

"Good. What's he look like?" Erik asked.

"About your height, but not as broad shouldered." Dornberger took a long pull on his cigar, its end glowing red in the darkness. "He has blond hair and a dueling scar."

Karl gave a soft chuckle. "Baumann should like that."

A lopsided grin crossed Erik's face. "Better take us in and let us introduce ourselves, Uncle."

Anton von Tupilow was stretched out on his bunk reading when Erik and Karl came in and tossed down their knapsacks. Walking over to the bunk, Erik stuck out his hand.