"Seventeen."

"Get them all. Search the grounds carefully, including every room and bedroom. I don't care if people are sleeping or not. I'll waken Salettl."

Elton Lybarger sat in a straight-backed chair watching Joanna. In five minutes she hadn't moved. If it weren't for the minor heave of her breasts under her nightgown, he would have taken the chance and called for help for fear she was ill.

It had been less than an hour since he'd found the video. Unable to sleep, he'd gone into his library for something to read. Lately, sleep had not been easy. And the little he'd had had been fitful, filled with strange dreams where he wandered alone among an array of people and places he thought were familiar but had no real fix on. And the times through which he passed were as distinctly different as the people, varying from prewar Europe to incidents as recent as that morning.

In his library he'd thumbed through several magazines and newspapers. Still sleepless, he'd wandered out onto the grounds. A light was on in the bungalow kept by his nephews Eric and Edward. Going to the door, he'd knocked. When no one answered he let himself in.

The luxurious main room, dwarfed by a massive stone fireplace and filled with expensive furniture, state of the art audio and video equipment, and shelf upon shelf of athletic trophies, was empty. The doors to the rear bedrooms were closed.

Assuming his nephews were asleep, Lybarger was turning to go when he saw a large envelope lying on a shelf near the door, probably left there for a messenger. On it was written "Uncle Lybarger." Thinking it was for him, he opened it and found a video cassette inside. Curious, he'd taken it and gone back to his study where he put it into his video deck, turned on his TV and sat back to watch whatever it was the boys had been about to send him.

What he saw was a tape of himself kicking a soccer ball with Eric and Edward, a political talk he had given that had been carefully coached by his speech therapist, a drama professor at the University of Zurich. And then- shockingly-a sequence showing himself and Joanna in bed, with all kinds of numbers running on the screen, and Von Holden standing by, naked as the moment he was born.

Joanna was his friend and companion. She was like his sister, even his daughter. What he'd seen had horrified him. How could it be? How had this happened? He had no memory of it whatsoever. Something, he knew, was terribly wrong.

The question was: Did Joanna know about it? Was this some kind of sick game she was playing with Von Holden? Filled with shock and anger, he'd gone immediately to her room. Waking her from a deep sleep, he'd loudly and indignantly demanded she look at the tape immediately.

Confused and more than a little upset by his manner and his presence in her bedroom, she'd done as he asked. And now, as the tape unspooled, she was as unnerved as he. Her terrifying dream of a few nights earlier had been no nightmare at all, but instead a vivid remembrance of what had actually taken place.

When it was done, Joanna shut off the machine and turned to face Lybarger. He was pale and trembling, as drained as she.

"You didn't know, did you? You had no idea that had happened?" she said.

"Nor you-"

"No, Mr. Lybarger. I most certainly did not."

Suddenly there was a sharp rap at her door. It opened immediately and Frieda Vossler, a square-jawed, twenty-five-year-old member of Anlegeplatz's security force entered.

Salettl and security chief Springer came into Joanna's room several minutes later to find an indignant Lybarger hammering the video into the palm of his hand and screaming at guard Vossler, demanding to know the meaning of such an outrage.

Calmly Salettl had taken away the video and asked Lybarger to relax, warning him that what he was doing could bring on a second stroke. Leaving Joanna in the company of the security force, Salettl had seen Lybarger back to his room, taken his blood pressure and put him to bed, giving him a strong sedative laced with a mild psychedelic drug. Lybarger would sleep for some time and the sleep would be filled with surreal and fanciful dreams. Dreams, Salettl trusted, Lybarger would confuse with the incident of the video and his visit to Joanna's room, Joanna, on the other hand, had been less cooperative, and when Salettl returned to her room, he considered firing her on the spot and sending her back to America on the first flight available. But he realized her absence might be even more disruptive. Lybarger was used to her, trusted her for his physical well-being. She had brought him this far, even to the point of getting him to walk confidently without aid of a cane, and there was no way to tell what he would do if she were no longer there. No, Salettl had decided, firing her was out of the question. It was vitally important she accompany Lybarger to Berlin and stay with him until he left to give his speech. Politely he had prevailed upon her, for Lybarger's sake, to. return to bed. That an explanation of what she had seen would be given her in the morning.

Frightened, angry and emotionally drained, Joanna had had the presence of mind not to press it.

"Just tell me," she'd said. "Who knew about it besides Pascal? Who took the damn pictures?"

"I don't know, Joanna. I certainly haven't viewed it so I'm not certain what it it even is. That's why I ask you to wait until morning when I can give you a conclusive answer." even is. That's why I ask you to wait until morning when I can give you a conclusive answer."

"All right," she'd said, then waited for them to leave before closing the door behind them and locking it.

Outside, Salettl had immediately posted security agent Frieda Vossler at her door with instructions that no one was to enter or exit without his permission.

Five minutes later he sat down at his office desk. It was already Thursday morning. In less than thirty-six hours, Lybarger would be in Berlin about to be presented at Charlottenburg Palace. After everything, and so close to the hour, that something could go wrong in Anlegeplatz was a circumstance none of them had even considered. Picking up the phone, he dialed Uta Baur in Berlin. Expecting to wake her, he was transferred to her office.

"Guten Morgen," her voice was crisp and alert. At 4:00 her voice was crisp and alert. At 4:00 A.M., A.M., she was already at work for the day. she was already at work for the day.

"I think you should know . . . there has been some confusion here at Anlegeplatz."

86.

BY O OSBORN'S watch it was nearly 2:30 in the morning, Thursday, October 13. watch it was nearly 2:30 in the morning, Thursday, October 13.

Next to him, in the dark, he could see Clarkson scanning the red and green lighted instrument panel of the Beechcraft Baron as he held it at a steady 200 knots. Behind them, McVey and Noble dozed fitfully, looking more like weary grandfathers than veteran homicide detectives. Below, the North Sea shimmered in the light of a waning half-moon, its strong tide running full against the Netherlands coast.

A short while later they banked to the right and entered Dutch air space. Then they were crossing over the dark mirror that was the Ijsselmeer, and soon afterward flying east over lush farmland toward the German border.

Osborn tried to picture Vera holed up in a house in the French countryside. It would be a farmhouse with a long drive up to it so that the armed men guarding her could see anyone coming well before they got there. Or maybe not. Maybe it was a modern two-story home on the rail line of a small town that trains passed by a dozen times a day. A nondescript house like thousands of others throughout France, ordinary and plain looking, with a five-year-old car parked out front. The last place a Stasi agent would ever guess housed his target.

Osborn must have dozed off himself because the next thing he saw was the faint glow of dawn on the horizon and Clarkson was dropping the Beechcraft through a light deck of clouds. Directly beneath, he said, was the river Elbe, dark and smooth, like a welcoming beacon that stretched as far in front of them as either of them could see.

Descending farther, they followed its southern bank for another twenty miles until the lights of the rural city of Havelberg shone in the distance.

McVey and Noble were awake now, watching as Clarkson dipped the left wing and banked sharply. Coming around, he cut the throttle and made a low, nearly silent, pass over the shadowy landscape. As he did, a signal light on the ground blinked twice then went out.

"Take us in," Noble said.

Clarkson nodded and brought the Baron's nose up. Giving the twin 300-horsepower engines a burst of power, he executed a steep righthand roll, then eased off the throttle and dropped back down. There was a bump as the landing gear came down, then Clarkson leveled off and came in just above the treetops. As he did, a row of blue lights came on, defining a grass landing strip in front of them. A minute later the wheels touched, the nose came over and the front wheel settled down. Immediately the landing lights went out and there was a deafening roar as Clarkson gave the propellers full reverse thrust. Several hundred feet later, the Baron rolled to a stop.

"McVey!"

A thick German accent was followed by a heavy laugh as McVey stepped out onto the dewy wet grass of the Elbe meadow some sixty miles northwest of Berlin and was instantly swept up in a giant bear hug by a huge man in a black leather jacket and blue jeans.

Lieutenant Manfred Remmer of the Bundeskriminalamt, the German Federal Police, stood six foot four and weighed two hundred and thirty-five pounds. Emotional and outspoken, ten years younger and he could have played linebacker for any team in the NFL. He was still that solid, that coordinated. Married and the father of four daughters, he was thirty-seven and had known McVey since he'd been sent to the LAPD as a young detective twelve years earlier in an international police exchange program.

Assigned to a three-week stint in Robbery-Homicide, two days later Manny Remmer had become McVey's partner-in-training. In those three weeks, trainee Manfred Remmer was present at six court dates, nine autopsies, seven arrests, and twenty-two questioning and interrogation sessions. He worked six days a week, fifteen hours a day, seven of those without pay, sleeping on a cot in McVey's study instead of the hotel room provided, in case something happened that needed their immediate and undivided attention. In the sixteen-odd days he and McVey were together, they arrested five hard-core drug dealers wit outstanding murder warrants and tracked down, apprehended and obtained a full confession from a man responsible for killing eight young women. Today, that man, Richard Homer, sits on San Quentin's death row, having exhausted a decade of appeals, waiting for execution.

"I am glad to see you, McVey. Happy to see you well and joyful to hear you were coming," Remmer said as he fishtailed a silver unmarked Mercedes off the meadowland and onto a dirt road. "Because I turned up a little information on your friends inside Interpol, Herren Klass and Halder. Not easy to get. Better to tell you in person than on the telephone-He's okay, yes?" Remmer threw a glance over his shoulder at Osborn sitting in back with Noble.

"He's okay, yes," McVey said, with a wink at Osborn. There was no longer need to keep him in the dark about what else was going on.

"Herr Hugo Klass was born in Munich in 1937. After the war he went with his mother to Mexico City. Later they moved to Brazil. Rio de Janeiro, later So Paulo." Remmer banged the Mercedes hard through a drainage ditch and accelerated onto a paved road. Ahead of them he sky was brightening, and with it came just a hint of the baroque Havelberg skyline.

"In 1958, he came back to Germany and joined the German Air Force and then the Bundesnachrichtendienst, West German Intelligence, where he developed a reputation as a fingerprint expert. Then he-"

Noble leaned over the front seat. "Went to work for Interpol at headquarters. Precisely what we got from MI6."

"Very good." Remmer smiled. "Now tell us the rest."

"What rest? That's all there is to tell."

"No background information? No family history?"

Noble sat back. "Sorry, that's all i have," he said dryly.

"Don't keep us guessing." McVey put on his sunglasses as the rising sun filled the horizon.

In the distance, Osborn saw a gray Mercedes sedan pull out of a side road and turn onto the highway in the same direction they were going. It was moving slower than they were, but when they caught up to it, accelerated to speed and Remmer stayed directly behind it. A moment later he was aware the same kind of car had pulled in behind them and was holding there. Turning, he could see two men in the front seat. Then, for the first time, he noticed the submachine gun in a holder on the door at Remmer's left elbow. The men in the cars in front and behind were obviously federal police. Remmer was taking no chances.

"Klass is not his birth name. It's Haussmann. During the war his father, Erich Haussmann, was a member of the Schutzstaffel, the SS. Identification number 337795. He was also a member of the Sicherheitsdienst, the SD. The security service of the Nazi party." Remmer followed the lead Mercedes south onto the Uberregionale Fern-verkehrsstrasse, the interregional through-route highway, and all three cars picked up speed.

"Two months before the war ended, Herr Haussmann vanished. Frau Bertha Haussmann then took her maiden name, Klass. Frau Haussmann was not a wealthy woman when she and her son left Germany for Mexico City in 1946. Yet she lived in a villa there with a cook and a maid and took them with her when she went to Brazil."

"You think she was supported by expatriate Nazis after the war?" McVey asked.

"Maybe, but who's to prove it? She was killed in a 1966 automobile accident outside Rio. I can tell you, however, Erich Haussmann visited her and her son on more than two dozen occasions while she lived in Brazil."

"You said the old man vanished before before the war ended." Noble foble leaned forward again. the war ended." Noble foble leaned forward again.

"And headed straight for South America, along with the father and older brother of Herr Rudolf Halder, your man in charge of Interpol, Vienna. The man who helped Klass so deftly reconstruct Albert Merriman's fingerprint from the piece of glass found in the Paris apartment of the dead private investigator, Jean Packard." Remmer took a pack of cigarettes from the dashboard, shook one out and lit it.

"Halder's real name was Otto," he said, exhaling. "His father and older brother were both in the SS and the SD, the same as Klass' father. Halder and Klass are the same age, fifty-five. Their formative years were spent not just in Nazi Germany, but in the households of Nazi fanatics. .Their teen years were spent in South America, where they were educated, overseen and funded by expatriate Nazis."

Noble looked at McVey. "You don't think we're looking at a neo-Nazi conspiracy-"

"Interesting idea, you add it all up. The killing of Merriman by a Stasi agent the day after he's discovered alive by a man strategically positioned in a place where worldwide police inquiries come and go a hundred times a day. The hunting down of Merriman's girlfriend and the killing of his wife and family in Marseilles. The shooting of Lebrun and his brother when they started looking into what Klass was doing in Lyon, pulling the Merriman file from the NYPD by using old Interpol codes most people don't even know exist. Blowing up the train Osborn and I were on. The gunning down of Benny Grossman in his house in Queens after he collects and passes information to Noble about people Erwin Scholl allegedly had killed thirty years ago.

"You're right, Ian. Put it all together and it sounds like the work of an espionage unit, a KGB kind of operation." McVey turned to Remmer.

"What do you think, Manny? Does the Klass-Halder connection turn this into some kind of neo-Nazi thing?"

"What the hell do you mean, neo-Nazi?" Remmer snapped. "Head-busting, sieg-heiling, skinheads with potatoes in their pockets filled with nails? Assholes who beat up immigrants and burn them out of their camps and are TV news every night?" Remmer looked from McVey to Noble behind him and then to Osborn. He was angry.

"Merriman, Lebrun, the Paris-Meaux train, Benny Grossman, who, when I called him for where to stay when I took the kids to New York, said, 'Stay at my house!' You say KGB like I think we should be saying not neo-Nazi but neo-Nazi working with old old Nazi! A Nazi! A continuum continuum of the thing that murdered six fucking million Jews and destroyed Europe. Neo-Nazis are the nipple on the tit, they're bullshit. For the moment, a nuisance. Nothing. It's underneath where the sickness still lives, lying behind the blinking faces of bank clerks and cocktail waitresses without them even knowing it, like a seed waiting for the right time, the right mixture of elements to give it rebirth. You spend the time I have on the streets and in the back halls of Germany and you know it. Nobody will ever say it, but it's there, like the wind." Remmer glared at McVey, then-stamped out his cigarette and looked back to the road in front of him. of the thing that murdered six fucking million Jews and destroyed Europe. Neo-Nazis are the nipple on the tit, they're bullshit. For the moment, a nuisance. Nothing. It's underneath where the sickness still lives, lying behind the blinking faces of bank clerks and cocktail waitresses without them even knowing it, like a seed waiting for the right time, the right mixture of elements to give it rebirth. You spend the time I have on the streets and in the back halls of Germany and you know it. Nobody will ever say it, but it's there, like the wind." Remmer glared at McVey, then-stamped out his cigarette and looked back to the road in front of him.

"Manny," McVey said quietly. "I hear you talking your private war. Guilt and shame and everything else thrown at you by another generation. What happened was their doing, not yours, but you bought the ticket anyway. Maybe you had to. And I'm not arguing with you about what you're saying. But, Manny, emotion is not fact."

"You're asking if I have firsthand information. The answer is no, I don't."

"What about the Bundeskriminalamt or Bundesnach christ and dice-or however the hell you pronounce the name for German Intelligence."

Remmer looked back. "Has hard evidence been found of an organized pro-Nazi movement large enough to have influence?" . . .

"Has it?"

"Same answer. No. At least not that I or my superiors are aware of, because such things are discussed all the time between police agencies. It is government policy to Remain je wachsam. je wachsam. That means ever alert, ever vigilant." That means ever alert, ever vigilant."

McVey studied him for a moment. "But personally, you say what? The mood is ripe-"

Remmer hesitated, then nodded. "It will never be spoken of. When it comes, you will never hear the word Nazi. Nazi. But they will have the power just the same. I give it two, three years, five on the outside." But they will have the power just the same. I give it two, three years, five on the outside."

On that pronouncement, the men in the car fell silent, and Osborn thought of what Vera had said about the resignation of Francois Christian and the new Europe. Her grandmother's haunted memories of the Nazi occupation of France: people taken away for no reason and never seen again, neighbor spying on neighbor, family on family, and everywhere, men with guns. "I feel that same shadow now-" The sound of her voice was as clear as if she were there beside him, and the fear in it chilled him.

The cars slowed as they reached the outskirts of a small town and started through it. Looking out, Osborn saw the early sun reaching across rooftops. Saw autumn leaves carpeting the village in bright red and gold. Schoolchildren waited on street corners, and an elderly couple walked along the sidewalk, the old woman leaning on a cane, her free arm tucked proudly into that of her husband. A traffic cop stood near an intersection arguing with a truck driver, and everywhere shopkeepers were setting out their goods.

It was hard to tell how big the town was. Two or three thousand maybe, if you counted the side streets and neighborhoods you couldn't see but knew were there. How many more like it were waking throughout Germany this morning? Hundreds, thousands? Towns, villages, small cities; each with its people going about their daily lives somewhere on the arc from birth to death. Was it possible that any of them still secretly yearned for the sight of goose-stepping storm troopers in tight shirts and swastika armbands, or hungered for the sound of their polished jackboots ringing off every door and window in the Fatherland?

How could they? The terrible era was a half century past. The moral right and wrong of it were worn and everyday themes. Collective guilt and shame still weighed on generations born decades after it was over. The Third Reich and what it stood for was dead. Maybe the rest of the world wanted always to remember, but Germany, Osborn was certain as he looked around, wanted to forget. Remmer had to be wrong.

"I have another name for you," Remmer said, breaking the silence. "The man who was instrumental in securing permanent positions for Klass and Halder within Interpol. Its current assignment director, a former officer in the Paris Prefecture of Police. I think you know him."

"Cadoux? No. It can't be! I've known him for years!" Noble was shocked.

"Yes, that's right." Remmer leaned back from the wheel and lit another cigarette. "Cadoux."

87.

AT 6:45 AM., AM., Erwin Scholl stood at the window in the office of his top-floor suite in the Grand Hotel Berlin watching the morning sun come up over the city. A gray Angora cat was in his arms and he stroked it absently. Erwin Scholl stood at the window in the office of his top-floor suite in the Grand Hotel Berlin watching the morning sun come up over the city. A gray Angora cat was in his arms and he stroked it absently.

Behind him Von Holden was on the phone to Salettl in Anlegeplatz. Through the closed door to the outer office, he could hear his secretaries fielding a battery of international calls, none of which he was taking.

Outside, on the balcony, Viktor Shevchenko smoked a cigarette and looked out over what had been East Berlin, waiting for instructions. Shevchenko was thirty-two, with the tough, wiry build of a street brawler. He, like Bern-hard Oven, had been recruited from the Soviet Army and brought into the Stasi as an enforcer by Von Holden. Then, with reunification, he had moved over and joined the Organization as chief of the Berlin sector.

"Nein!" Von Holden said sharply, and Scholl turned around. Von Holden said sharply, and Scholl turned around.

"No. Not necessary!" he said in German and shook his head.

Scholl turned back to the window, still stroking the cat. He'd heard the only words he'd needed at the beginning of Von Holden's conversation: Elton Lybarger was resting comfortably and would arrive in Berlin tomorrow as scheduled.

In thirty-six hours, one hundred of Germany's most influential citizens would have come from across the country and gather at Charlottenburg Palace to see him. At a little after nine, the doors to the private dining room would be opened, the room would hush and Lybarger would make his grand entrance. Resplendent in formal dress, no cane at his side, he would walk alone down the beribboned center aisle, wholly aloof from those who watched him. At room's end, he would climb the half dozen stairs to the podium, and there, to a thunderous ovation, he would turn like a monarch to face them. Finally, he would raise his arms for silence and then would deliver the most important -and magnificent address of his life.

Hearing Von Holden sign off, Scholl came out of his reverie. Dropping the cat on an overstuffed chair, he sat down at his desk.

"Mr. Lybarger found the video by accident and showed it to Joanna," Von Holden said. "This morning he has little or no memory of it. She, however, is still causing some trouble. Salettl will take care of it."

"He wanted you to do it, to come there to smooth it over. That was the argument?"

"Yes, but it is not necessary."

"Pascal, Dr. Salettl is correct. If the girl continues to be disturbed, it will carry over to Lybarger, which is something quite unacceptable. Salettl may assuage her but hardly to the extent you can. It's the difference between thinking and feeling. Consider how much more difficult it is to change an emotion than a thought. Even if he changes her mind, she can simply change it back again and cause the kind of disruption we cannot have. But if she's soothed and stroked, she will end up purring and content like the cat who now sleeps peacefully on the chair."