Colin Forbes - Double Jeopardy

The man shook his head and Stoller told both of them to wait with him in the library. lie noticed Dietrich was beginning to enjoy his cigar, to relax in his chair.

`Who has told you this fantastic story about this mythical person being anywhere near my home?'

`The aerial camera – plus the co-pilot's field-glasses. The film taken will, when developed, provide the evidence. We used special film which shows the exact date and time pictures are taken – one of the products of your company, I believe?'

`Camera? Pilot? Have you gone mad?'

`A helicopter tracked Johnson up to the schloss – with a cine-camera recording the incident as I have just explained. What cigarettes do you smoke, Mr Dietrich? The brand, I mean.'

`I only smoke cigars – Havanas.' Dietrich was mystified by the turn events were taking and shifted restlessly in his chair.

`And Miss Beck smokes Blend- as I noticed when she took out her pack…'

Stoller was walking along the line of bookcases. He stopped and stooped to pick up a cigarette stub half-hidden in the shag carpet at the foot of a bookcase. He showed everyone the stub which he had spotted a few minutes earlier.

`Interesting. Dietrich on his own admission – smokes cigars. Miss Beck smokes Blend. This stub is Silk Cut – a British cigarette. It was lying at the base of this bookcase. I find it hard to surmise how it comes to be there – unless it was dropped when someone walked through a solid wall. Or is the wall so solid…' He began taking out volumes from the shelves and dropping them on the floor. To speed up the process he swept whole sections of the calf-bound volumes on to the carpet as he nodded to his two men. They produced

Walther automatics and held them ready for use. Enraged, Dietrich strode round his desk.

'Those volumes are priceless…'

'Then show me where the catch is which releases the concealed door.'

'You are mad…!'

Dietrich stopped speaking as another half-dozen books went on the floor and Stoller gazed at a red button set in a plastic frame which had just been exposed. He pressed the button and a section of bookcase slid back revealing the spiral staircase beyond.

'Peter,' he ordered, 'go and see what is down there. Should you meet any resistance use your gun.' He glanced round the room. I doubt if I have to remind anyone terrorist kidnapping is punishable by long terms of imprisonment…'

'I was upstairs helping Klara,' Dietrich began.

'Was he, Miss Beck?' Stoller enquired. 'Be careful how you reply since criminal proceedings may be involved.'

'I'm confused…' Beck started choking on her cigarette but was saved from saying more by the appearance of Martel brushing dirt from his sleeve. There was dried blood on his knuckles where his hands had hit the cellar flagstones. Peter came into the room behind him and spoke to Stoller.

'He was imprisoned in a cellar like a pig-pen but they left the key on the Outside of the door – it saved shooting off the lock.'

'Well, Dietrich?' Stoller asked.

'He is an imposter… I was sure he was an assassin sent to kill me… After he made an appointment I phoned The Times in London… They told me Johnson is in Paris… I have many enemies…'

The Delta leader was talking like a machine-gun, gesturing to indicate his alarm, the words tumbling out as he struggled forcefully to make his story sound plausible enough to make Stoller doubt the wisdom of preferring charges. It was Martel who guided Stoller to a decision.

'I suggest we get to hell out of this den of nauseating clowns. The atmosphere here smells even fouler than it did in that filthy cellar…'

The three BND cars reached the exit, turned past the heap of dog corpses lying in the road and headed back towards Munich.

'In a minute,' Stoller said to Martel, 'we come to where I left Claire Hofer parked in your Audi – where you left her. She recognised me and blasted hell out of her horn to stop us. Then she blasted more hell out of me to hurry to the schloss. That girl likes you,' Stoller commented with a sideways glance.

'I'll bear it in mind – and thanks for keeping tabs on me with the chopper – and for battering your way into the fortress…'

'Why did you visit Dietrich?' the German asked.

'To set the enemy at each other's throats. To convince him he is being betrayed, which I believe is the truth. It may throw a last-minute spanner in the works of Operation Crocodile. And God knows we're close to the last minute…'

Claire made her remark as Martel drove them in the Audi back to Munich. Stoller's motorcade had long since vanished as he hurried to reach the airport to catch his flight to Bonn.

`I assume we cancel out Erich Stoller now as a possible assassin?'

'Why?'

Tor God's sake because he rescued you from the clutches of that swine, Dietrich…'

'And what will be the prime objective of the security chief who is the secret assassin?' Martel enquired.

'I don't follow you,' she said with a note of irritation.

'To act in a way that will convince Tweed and I that he is not the man we're looking for.'

'You can't mean Erich Stoller is still on the list.'

'Yes. He is no more cleared than the others. Let's hope those records we're collecting from Munich Airport do tell us who we're looking for.'

Tuesday June 2: 1400-2200 hours

Name: Erich Heinz Stoller. Nationality: German. Date of birth: June 17 1950. Place of birth: Haar, Munich.

Career record: Served with Kriminalpolizei, Wiesbaden, 1970-1974

… Transferred to BND, 1974… served as undercover agent inside East Germany, 1975-1977… Appointed. chief, BND, 1978…

Tweed again skip-read the file McNeil had handed him. Examining dossiers produced this reaction: the more you tackled the faster you absorbed them. Tweed pushed the file back across the desk to McNeil. He rubbed his eyes and yawned before asking the question.

'What do you think of Stoller? You never met him – which can be an advantage. His personality doesn't intrude, you concentrate on the facts.'

'He's by far the youngest of the four – in his early thirties. Isn't that unusual – to become chief of the BND at his age?' 'Chancellor Langer personally promoted him over the heads of God knows how many more senior candidates. He has a reputation for being brilliant…'

'I detect a "but" in your inflection,' McNeil observed. `Well, he did spend two years behind the Iron Curtain.. 'But you said he was brilliant…'

'So we start going round in circles again.' Tweed frowned and leaned forward to tap the neat pile of folders McNeil had arranged. 'I'm convinced that in one of those folders is the answer – a fact pointing straight at the guilty man. It's at the back of my mind but I'm damned if I can bring it to the surface.'

`Maybe Martel will spot it when he reads the copies I'm taking with me to Miinich this evening…'

'It worries me, McNeil,' Tweed said quietly, 'you're breaking all the regulations by taking even copies of those dossiers out of the country…'

`I'll be covered by my diplomatic immunity pass. Martel will meet me as soon as I get off the plane. Nothing can happen while I'm in the first-class section of the plane. I'm quite looking forward to the trip…'

`I'm having you escorted to Munich with an armed guard,' Tweed decided. He reached for the phone, dialled a number, gave brief instructions and listened. 'He'll be here in half an hour,' he told McNeil as he replaced the phone. 'It will be

Mason – he says he's the only one available.'

'At least he will be company on the flight.'

Tweed looked at her and marvelled. Some of these middle-aged English women were extraordinary. They undertook the most dangerous missions as though they were taking a trip to Penzance. He watched as she packed the copy files in a special security briefcase. Her own small bag had been packed hours ago.