第 43 页

He was personable to look at, sometimes almost boyish, with his youthful clothes and blow-dried, carefully barbered hair. But behind the charm there could be a coldness, an im-passivity that hid the inner man. Those who had negotiated with him noticed that the only sign he was homing in was that he ceased to blink. Then his stare could be unnerving. When Dr. Armitage had left the room Walters broke the grim silence.

?It may be, gentlemen, we will have to look seriously at the Twenty-fifth.?

They all knew about it, but he had been the first to in-voke its availability. Under the Twenty-fifth Amendment, the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet may together, in writing, communicate to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their view that the President is no longer able to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Section 4 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment, to be precise.

?No doubt you?ve memorized it, Bill,? snapped Odell.

?Easy, Michael,? said Jim Donaldson. ?Bill just men-tioned it.?

?He would resign before that,? said Odell.

?Yes,? said Walters soothingly. ?On health grounds, with absolute justification, and with the sympathy and grati-tude of the nation. We just might have to put it to him. That?s all.?

?Not yet, surely,? protested Stannard.

?Hear, hear. There is time,? said Reed. ?The grief will pass, surely. He will recover. Become his old self.?

?And if not　 asked Walters. His unblinking stare went across the face of every man in the room. Michael Odell rose abruptly. He had been in some political fights in his time, but there was a coldness about Walters he had never liked. The man did not drink, and by the look of his wife he probably made love by the book.

?Okay, we?ll keep an eye on it,? he said. ?Now, how-ever, we?ll defer decision on that. Right, gentlemen　

Everyone else nodded and rose. They would defer con-sideration of the Twenty-fifth. For now.

?

It was a combination of the rich wheat and barley lands of Lower Saxony and Westphalia to the north and east, plus the crystal-clear water trickling out of the nearby hills, that first made Dortmund a beer town. That was in 1293, when King Adolf of Nassau gave the citizens of the small town in the southern tip of Westphalia the right to brew.

Steel, insurance, banking, and trade came later, much later. Beer was the foundation, and for centuries theDort-munders drank most of it themselves. The industrial revolu-tion of the middle and late nineteenth century provided the third ingredient for the grain and the water?the thirsty workers of the factories that mushroomed along the valley of the Ruhr. At the head of the valley, with views southwest as far as the towering chimneys of Essen,Duisburg, andD?s-seldorf, the city stood between the grain prairies and the cus-tomers. The city fathers took advantage; Dortmund became the beer capital of Europe.

Seven giant breweries ruled the trade: Brinkhoff, Kronen, DAB,Stifts, Ritter, Thier, andMoritz. Hans Moritz was head of the second-smallest brewery and head of the dynasty that went back eight generations. But he was the last individual to own and control his empire personally, and that made him very seriously rich. It was partly his wealth and partly the fame of his name that had caused the savages of the Baader-Meinhof gang to snatch his daughterRenata ten years before.

Quinn and Sam checked into the Roemischer Kaiser Hotel in the center of the city and Quinn tried the telephone directory with little hope. The home number, of course, was not listed. He wrote a personal letter on the hotel stationery, called a cab, and had it delivered to the brewery?s head of-fice.

?Do you think your friend will still be here　 asked Sam.

?He?ll be here, all right,? said Quinn. ?Unless he?s away abroad, or at any of his six homes.?

?He likes to move around a lot,? observed Sam.

?Yeah. He feels safer that way. The French Riviera, the Caribbean, the ski chalet, the yacht ...?

He was right in supposing that the villa on Lake Constanz had long been sold; that was where the snatch had taken place.

He was also in luck. They were eating dinner when Quinn was called to the phone.

?HerrQuinn　

He recognized the voice, deep and cultured. The man spoke four languages, could have been a concert pianist. Maybe should have been.

?Herr Moritz. Areyou in town　

?You remember my house? You should. You spent two weeks in it, once.?

?Yes, sir. I remember it. I didn?t know whether you still retained it.?

?Still the same.Renata loves it, wouldn?t let me change it. What can I do for you　

?I?d like to see you.?

?Tomorrow morning. Coffee at ten-thirty.?

?I?ll be there.?

* * *

They drove out of Dortmund due south along theRuhrwald Strasse until the industrial and commercial sprawl dropped away behind and they entered the outer suburb of Syburg. The hills began, rolling and forested, and the estates situated within the forests contained the homes of the wealthy.

TheMoritz mansion was set in four acres of parkland down a lane off the Hohensyburg Strasse. Across the valley the Syburger monument stared down the Ruhr toward the spires ofSauerland.

The place was a fortress. Chain-link fencing sur-rounded the entire plot and the gates were high-tensile steel, remote-controlled and with a TV camera discreetly attached to a pine tree nearby. Someone watched Quinn climb out of the car and announce himself through the steel grille beside the gates. Two seconds later the gates swung open on electric motors. When the car passed through they closed again.

?Herr Moritzenjoys his privacy,? said Sam.

?He has reason to,? said Quinn.

He parked on the tan gravel in front of the white stucco house and a uniformed steward let them in. HansMoritz re-ceived them in the elegant sitting room, where coffee waited in a sterling-silver pot. His hair was whiter than Quinn re-called, his face more lined, but the handshake was as firm and the smile as grave.

They had hardly sat down when the door opened and a young woman stood there hesitantly. Moritz?s face lit up. Quinn turned to look.

She was pretty in a vacuous sort of way, shy to the point of self-effacement. Both her little fingers ended in stumps. She must be twenty-five now, Quinn thought.

?Renata,kitten, this is Mr. Quinn. You remember Mr. Quinn? No, of course not.?

Moritzrose, crossed to his daughter, murmured a few words in her ear, kissed the top of her head. She turned and left.Moritz resumed his seat. His face was impassive, but the twisting of his fingers revealed his inner turmoil.

?She ... um ... never really recovered, you know. The therapy goes on. She prefers to stay inside, seldom goes out. She will not marry ... after what those animals did ...?

There was a photograph on the Steinbeck grand; of a laughing, mischievous fourteen-year-old on skis. That was a year before the kidnapping. A year afterwardMoritz had found his wife in the garage, the exhaust gases pumping down the rubber tube into the closed car. Quinn had been told in London.

Moritzmade an effort. ?I?m sorry. What can I do for you　

?I?m trying to find a man. One who came from Dort-mund long ago. He may still be here, or in Germany, or dead, or abroad. I don?t know.?

?Well, there are agencies, specialists. Of course, I can engage ...?

Quinn realized thatMoritz thought he needed money to engage private investigators.

?Or you could ask through theEinwohnermeldeant .?

Quinn shook his head.

?I doubt if they would know. He almost certainly does not willingly cooperate with the authorities. But I believe the police might keep surveillance on him.?

Technically speaking, German citizens who move to a new home within the country are required by law to notify the Inhabitants Registration Office of changes of address, both where from and where to the move took place. Like most bureaucratic systems, this works better in theory than in practice. The ones the police and/or the income tax au-thorities would like to contact are often those who decline to oblige.

Quinn sketched in the background of the man WernerBernhardt.

?If he is still in Germany, he would be of an age to be in employment,? said Quinn. ?Unless he has changed his name, that will mean he has a social security card, pays in-come tax?or someone pays it for him. Because of his back-ground he might have been in trouble with the law.?

Moritzthought it over.

?If he is a law-abiding citizen?and even a former mer-cenary might never have committed an offense inside Germany?he would not have a police record,? he said. ?As for the income tax and social security people, they would regard this as privileged information, not to be divulged to an inquiry from you, or even me.?

?They would respond to a police inquiry,? said Quinn. ?I thought you might perhaps have a friend or two in the city or state police.?

?Ah,? saidMoritz. Only he would ever know just how much he had donated to the police charities of the city of Dortmund and the state of Westphalia. As in any country in the world, money is power and both buy information. ?Give me twenty-four hours. I?ll phone you.?

He was true to his word, but his tone when he called the Roemischer Kaiser the following morning after breakfast was distant, as if someone had given him a warning along with the information.

?Werner RichardBernhardt, ?he said as if reading from notes, ?aged forty-eight, former Congo mercenary. Yes, he?s alive, here in Germany. He works on the personal staff ofHorst Lenzlinger, the arms dealer.?

?Thank you. Where would I findHerr Lenzlinger　

?Not easily. He has an office in Bremen but lives out-side Oldenburg, inAmmerland County. Like me, a very pri-vate man. There the resemblance ends. Be careful of Lenzlinger,Herr Quinn. My sources tell me that despite the respectable veneer he is still a gangster.?

He gave Quinn both addresses.

?Thank you,? said Quinn as he noted them. There was an embarrassed pause on the line.

?One last thing. I am sorry. A message from the Dort-mund police. Please leave Dortmund. Do not come back. That is all.?

The word of Quinn?srole in what had happened on the side of a Buckinghamshire road was spreading. Soon doors would start to close in many places.

?Feel like driving　 he asked Sam when they were packed and checked out.

?Sure. Where to　

?Bremen.? She studied the map.

?Good God, it?s halfway back to Hamburg.?

?Two thirds, actually. Take the E.37 forOsnabr?ck and follow the signs. You?ll love it.?

?

That evening Colonel Robert Easterhouse flew out of Jiddah for London, changed planes, and flew on directly to Hous-ton. On the flight across the Atlantic he had access to the whole range of American newspapers and magazines.

Three of them carried articles on the same theme, and the reasoning of all the writers was remarkably similar. The presidential election of November 1992 was now just twelve months away. In the normal course of events the Republican party choice would be no choice at all. President Cormack would secure the nomination unopposed for a second term of office.

But the course of events these past six weeks had not been normal, the scribes told their readers?as if they needed to be told. They went on to describe the effect on President Cormack of the loss of his son as traumatic and disabling.

All three writers listed a chronicle of lapses of concen-tration, canceled speaking engagements, and abandoned public appearances in the previous fortnight since the funeral on Nantucket island. ?The Invisible Man,? one of them called the Chief Executive.

The summary of each was also similar. Would it not be better, they wrote, if the President stepped down in favor of Vice President Odell, giving Odell a clear twelve months in office to prepare for reelection in November ?92?

After all, reasoned Time, the main plank of Cormack?s foreign, defense, and economic policy, the shaving of $100 billion off the defense budget with a matching reduction by the U.S.S.R., was already dead in the water.

?Belly up? was how Newsweek described the chances of the treaty?s ratification by the Senate after the Christmas recess.

Easterhouse landed at Houston close to midnight, after twelve hours in the air and two in London. The headlines on the newsstands in the Houston airport were more overt: Michael Odell was a Texan and would be the first Texan Presi-dent since Lyndon Johnson if he stepped into Cormack?s shoes.

The conference with the Alamo Group was scheduled in two days? time in the Pan-Global Building. A company limousine took Easterhouse to the Remington, where a suite had been reserved for him. Before turning in, he caught a late news summary. Again, the question was being asked.

The colonel had not been informed of Plan Travis. He did not need to know. But he did know that a change of Chief Executive would remove the last stumbling block to the fru-ition of all his endeavors?the securing of Riyadh and the Hasa oil fields by an American Rapid Deployment Force sent in by a President prepared to do it.

Fortuitous, he thought as he drifted into sleep. Very fortuitous.

?

The small brass plaque on the wall of the converted ware-house beside the paneled teak door said simply:THOR SPEDI-TIONAG. Lenzlinger apparently hid the true nature of his business behind thefa?ade of a trucking company, though there were no rigs to be seen and the smell ofdiesel had never penetrated the carpeted privacy of the fourth-floor suite of offices to which Quinn mounted.

There was an intercom to seek admittance from street level, and another with closed-circuit TV camera at the end of the corridor on the fourth floor. The conversion of the warehouse in a side street off the old docks?where the riverWeser pauses on its way to the North Sea to provide the rea-son for old Bremen?s existence?had not been cheap.

The secretary, when he met her in the outer office, seemed typecast. Had Lenzlinger had any trucks, she could easily have kick-started them.

? Ja, bitte　she asked, though her gaze made plain it was he, not she, who was the supplicant.

?I would like the opportunity of speaking withHerr Lenzlinger,? said Quinn.

She took his name and vanished into the private sanc-tum, closing the door behind her. Quinn had the impression that the mirror set into the partition wall was one-way. She returned after thirty seconds.

?And your business, please,Herr Quinn.?

?I would like the chance to meet an employee ofHerr Lenzlinger, a certain WernerBernhardt, ?he said.

She went backstage again. This time she was gone more than a minute. When she returned she closed the door firmly on whoever sat within.

?I regret,Herr Lenzlinger is not available to speak with you,? she said. It sounded final.

?I?ll wait,? said Quinn.