STAG WAS JUST finished with his room service hamburger when the room phone rang next to him.
For a long moment, he stared at the clanging device, paralyzed by an unnamed dread.
“Yes.”
“Einhar Kronbauer, Mr. Maguire. I am from the Dresdenhof.”
He sat up, his body tensing. Jesus, they were quick.
“I would like to meet you for a drink, if you would be so kind. Perhaps now downstairs?”
Stag paused. He damned himself, helpless at check-in when they required his passport. He’d hoped there’d be more time. Some rest at least.
Now they knew where he was. The Dresdenhof’s security cameras would have his face to compare to his US ID. The only reason he was still alive was because they didn’t know what he had. They still wanted to talk to him—which was good—but it was only a matter of when before they’d lose patience and forcibly bring him in.
He had to play for time. There was too much he didn’t know. He’d barely begun deciphering the lines of code. He’d stumbled into this deadly mess because of that portrait, but now it was clear he had to make sure he stumbled less.
“I’ll meet you in the lobby.” He hung up the phone. He was going to have trouble sleeping tonight anyway. Might as well have a couple whiskeys. It wouldn’t hurt his nerves either.
He looked down at the book. It was next to the silk he’d taken from the apartment, the silk that perfectly matched its edges with the piece from the back of the portrait. There was no way he was leaving the book behind in the room, and no way he was going to walk around Berlin with a copy of Mein Kampf in his hands. He grabbed the sport coat he’d bought at the Walmart back in the US. He ripped open the interior breast pocket wide enough to fit the book, and stuffed it inside.
Once downstairs, he would press Kronbauer for whatever details he could. One thing was certain; he had to make sure Kronbauer brought the news back to the Tarnhelm Corporation that Stag Maguire had just enough information to be a wild card. He’d have to bullshit his way through. Make them too terrified to kill him. Then he might make it. He had to. Because that was the only way to keep them from murdering him for another few days.
Kronbauer sat in a chair along the balustrade that curved over the lobby. Stag noticed that he’d changed from earlier. He was quite the sharp dresser, this German with the fancy neckties.
Stag took a seat at the coffee table. After he’d ordered his whiskey, he took in the view of the lobby below and the stained-glass dome that hung above.
“Thank you for meeting me, Mr. Maguire,” Kronbauer began with his thick German accent.
Maguire said nothing. His nerves were on edge from lack of sleep and the soul-eating fear of being consumed by a predator. He was exhausted, but terror would keep him focused and alert.
“As you might guess, many people have been quite surprised at your interest in apartment 12A,” Kronbauer said.
“I didn’t find it, if that’s what you and your employer are wondering. But I will.”
Stag was pleased by Kronbauer’s troubled and confused expression. He himself didn’t know what the “it” was, but that there was an “it” related to that apartment, he had no doubt.
Kronbauer put his hand to his tie in the obsequiousness of all concierges. “The owner of the apartment has long since died, Mr. Maguire. The trust that maintains it is self-funding. There seems no apparent purpose in your interest.”
Since he was stabbing in the dark, Stag figured he had no choice but to keep fucking with him. “Diamonds are my interest.”
“I can assure you, you are on a fool’s errand. There are no diamonds in the apartment. I know every nook and cranny.”
“Maybe there’s something you missed. These are special diamonds.”
“The Blood Eagle? It certainly was a famous diamond, but it is not there, Mr. Maguire. If it were, I would know about it. It disappeared after Heydrich bought it. Just like so much associated with Heydrich, when he was assassinated.”
Stag weighed this new information in his head. “I have information you don’t. And my visit to 12A only confirmed everything I already knew.” Good God, he was doing a stellar job of bullshitting. He didn’t know he had it in him.
What the fuck was The Blood Eagle?
“May—may I be blunt with you, Mr. Maguire?” Stag was struck by the waver in Kronbauer’s voice. “You may be inquiring into things that people would like to keep undercover. I have no personal knowledge about this, but I fear it may not go well for you should you pursue this.”
There seemed a strange little humanity in Kronbauer that Stag hadn’t expected.
“Germany lost the war,” Stag said. “The Holocaust is no longer a secret. What on earth is there to hide in that apartment?”
Kronbauer drilled him with his stare. “What there is to hide, if I might venture a guess, is the horrific truth, sir.”
“The truth? And what would that be?”
Kronbauer paused. He didn’t seem to want to speak the words. “That most Germans would do it all again, if the circumstances were the same. In fact, I think you now know a good number of Americans that will act in fear and prejudice, and do cruel and inhuman things they may, in hindsight, deeply regret. It is the truth that we all run from. It is the human condition. We hate and fear and exploit the Other. We do not listen to the better angels of our nature. Not without constant vigilance.” He looked away and took a deep sip of his drink. Stag guessed it was scotch. “And I tell you as a postwar German, that vigilance is exhausting.”
Stag took a moment to ponder his words. Kronbauer was no idiot, and he had now proved he knew a lot more than he was letting on. “Who is it you work for?”
Kronbauer was back to business in a flash. “I invite you to discover that on your own, Mr. Maguire. Mr. Portier asks you join him in Zug for a brief holiday. He will be happy to send his jet.”
“Huh. Beats the hell out of the way I’ve been used to traveling. But you can tell your employer that I have all the information I need already.”
Kronbauer took a distracted sip from his glass.
“Mr. Portier can be very persuasive. He has assured me your trip would be profitable.”
“Tarnhelm needs to stay out of my business.”
“Of course, of course.” Kronbauer met his eye. “Perhaps they are only trying to be of service. “
“Bullshit.”
Kronbauer almost imperceptibly raised one eyebrow. “They have a stake in 12A. And they do not take prisoners.”
Stag stared at him, anger rising up like a fist in his throat. “What is their stake in 12A? I doubt a big international corporation like Tarnhelm needs to worry about a missing diamond, no matter how rare. So what is it? The janitorial service for one lousy apartment? Or could it be that their specialty in document destruction missed a document or two?”
Kronbauer tensed. “Mr. Portier is quite interested in all you have to say, Mr. Maguire. What can I do to persuade you to take him up on his offer to fly you to him?”
“I’m going to get the Blood Eagle. Tell him that. Then maybe we’ll talk.” Stag slammed the rest of his whiskey.
He stood. “And just to let you know, if anyone’s going anywhere, it’s Portier. He’ll be coming to me, not the other way around. You tell him that.”
“I will, Mr. Maguire. But may I offer some advice?”
Stag listened.
“Decades have passed with my family in the service of apartment 12A. There is something … quite dark and unsavory in there. And much bigger than either of us. You cannot do this alone.” He paused. “If you contact me again through the Dresdenhof, Tarnhelm will know.”
Stag nodded and saw sadness and perhaps a little grudging admiration on Kronbauer’s face as he watched him go.
Pressing the elevator button, Stag wondered if he’d played it too hard. He was running the words through his head when the elevator doors opened and the blond woman he’d passed in the Pariserplatz stepped out. She gave him another smile. Her red coat was gone, which meant she’d probably left it in her room. Now she wore a sexy, frayed, vintage suit and clutched an iPad.
“Hello,” she said, no immediately identifiable accent in her voice.
He nodded.
She walked past him, the iPad clattering to the floor behind her.
He reached for it just as she did.
“Always clumsy, I guess,” she offered when she took it from him with what could only be described as a dazzlingly smart girl-next-door smile.
She turned to the lobby. He stepped into the waiting elevator. The exchange was pleasant. A nice antidote to the fear and paranoia that engulfed him. But he didn’t trust it. Not for a minute.
The elevator doors closed, and he wondered who she was and what her business was in Berlin. Could she have something to do with him? But there was no point in getting paranoid now. Because they really were out to get him. He need speculate no more.
Suddenly he was bone tired, but he knew he would get little sleep in the Adlon. The fight or flight instinct was raging once again and he knew now to listen to it. He was going to have to battle through the fog of weariness and get the hell out of the Adlon without them knowing where he’d gone.
His consolation was that he doubted the strange Mr. Portier with the private jet was going to rest very well in Zug or wherever the hell he laid his head at night.