The three Europeans anticipated that the man—they did not know his name—would instruct them to return to Paris. To await further orders.
The man had other intentions, insisting that they all sit uncomfortably together in the front seat while he occupied the entire space in the back. He ordered the car to Vernon, where two got out and were told to make their own way back to Paris. The driver was to remain.
The driver vaguely protested when Scarlett ordered him to proceed west to Montbéliard, a small town near the Swiss border.
“Mein Herr! That’s a four-hundred-kilometer trip! It will take ten hours or more on these abysmal roads!”
“Then we should be there by dinner time. And be quiet!”
“It might have been simpler for mein Herr to refuel and fly …”
“I do not fly when I am tired. Relax. I’ll find you some ‘seafood’ in Montbéliard. Vary your diet, Kircher. It excites the palate.”
“Jawohl, mein Herr!” Kircher grinned, knowing the man was really a fine Oberführer.
Scarlett reflected. The misfits! One day they’d be rid of the misfits.
Montbéliard was not much more complex than an oversized village. The principal livelihood of its citizens was farm produce, much of which was shipped into Switzerland and Germany. Its currency, as in many towns on the border, was a mixture of francs, marks, and Swiss francs.
Scarlett and his driver reached it a little after nine in the evening. However, except for several stops for petrol and a midafternoon lunch, they had pushed forward with no conversation between them. This quiet acted as a sedative to Scarlett’s anxiety. He was able to think without anger, although his anger was ever present. The driver had been right when he had pointed out that a flight from Lisieux to Montbéliard would have been simpler and less arduous, but Scarlett could not risk any explosions of temper brought on by exhaustion.
Sometime that day or evening—the time was left open—he was meeting with the Prussian, the all-important man who could deliver what few others could. He had to be up to that meeting, every brain cell working. He couldn’t allow recent problems to distort his concentration. The conference with the Prussian was the culmination of months, years of work. From the first macabre meeting with Gregor Strasser to the conversion of his millions to Swiss capital. He, Heinrich Kroeger, possessed the finances so desperately needed by the National Socialists. His importance to the party was now acknowledged.
The problems. Irritating problems! But he’d made his decisions. He’d have Howard Thornton isolated, perhaps killed. The San Franciscan had betrayed them. If the Stockholm manipulation had been uncovered, it had to be laid at Thornton’s feet. They’d used his Swedish contacts and obviously he maneuvered large blocks of securities back into his own hands at the depressed price.
Thornton would be taken care of.
As was the French dandy, Jacques Bertholde.
Thornton and Bertholde! Both misfits! Greedy, stupid misfits!
What had happened to Boothroyd? Obviously killed on the Calpurnia. But how? Why? Regardless, he deserved to die! So did his father-in-law. Rawlins’ order to kill Elizabeth Scarlatti was stupid! The timing had been insane! Couldn’t Rawlins understand that she would have left letters behind, documents? She was far more dangerous dead than alive. At least until she’d been reached—as he had reached her, threatened her precious Scarlattis. Now, she could die! Now it wouldn’t matter. And with Bertholde gone, Rawlins gone, and Thornton about to be killed, there’d be no one left who knew who he was. No one! He was Heinrich Kroeger, a leader of the new order!
They pulled up at L’Auberge des Moineaux, a small restaurant with a buvette and lodgings for the traveler or for those desiring privacy for other reasons. For Scarlett it was the appointed meeting place.
“Take the car down the road and park it,” he told Kircher. “I’ll be in one of the rooms. Have dinner. I’ll call for you later.… I haven’t forgotten my promise.” Kircher grinned.
Ulster Scarlett got out of the car and stretched. He felt better, his skin bothered him less, and the impending conference filled him with a sense of anticipation. This was the kind of work he should always do! Matters of vast consequences. Matters of power.
He waited until the car was far enough down the street to obscure Kircher’s rear-mirror view of him. He then walked back, away from the door, to the cobblestone path and turned into it. Misfits were never to be told anything that wasn’t essential to their specific usefulness.
He reached an unlighted door and knocked several times.
The door opened and a moderately tall man with thick, wavy black hair and prominent, dark eyebrows stood in the center of the frame as if guarding an entrance, not welcoming a guest. He was dressed in a Bavarian-cut gray coat and brown knickers. The face was darkly cherubic, the eyes wide and staring. His name was Rudolf Hess.