Six Graves to Munich - Mario Cleri [52]
Rogan nodded. She took him up an interior staircase that led into a dark cool hall floored with marble. Great oak doors studded the sides of the corridor at intervals of fifty feet, the doors to the courtrooms. Deep niches next to each door contained suits of armor. Some of the niches were empty, the armor looted during the war and not yet replaced.
As he passed the courtroom doors Rogan could see the accused—petty thieves, burglars, rapists, pimps, murderers, and innocents—waiting for justice. He walked down the long corridor, his head pounding with the fearful emotion that filled the air like a malevolent electric current. They came to a wooden stand that held a placard: “Kriminalgericht,” and underneath: “Bundesgericht von Osteen, Präsidium.”
Rosalie was pulling at his arm. “In this courtroom,” she whispered. “Von Osteen will be the middle one of three judges.”
Rogan went in past a bailiff and took a seat in a back row. Rosalie sat beside him.
Slowly Rogan raised his head to look at the three judges on their platform at the lower end of the huge courtroom. A spectator seated in front of him obscured his view, and he tilted his head to get a better look. None of the judges looked familiar. “I don’t see him,” he whispered to Rosalie.
“The judge in the middle,” she whispered.
Rogan stared intently. The judge in the middle bore no resemblance to von Osteen. Von Osteen’s features were aristocratic, aquiline; this man’s features were lumpy. Even his forehead was narrower. No man could have changed so much. He whispered to Rosalie, “That’s not von Osteen; he doesn’t look anything like him.”
Slowly Rosalie turned to face him. “You mean he’s not the seventh man?”
Rogan shook his head. He saw gladness in her eyes and did not understand. Then she whispered, “But he is von Osteen. That’s certain. I know that for a fact.”
He felt dizzy suddenly. They had tricked him after all. He remembered the Freisling brothers’ sly smiles when they had given him the information about von Osteen. He remembered something confident in Bailey’s manner when they talked about von Osteen, something that had amused the Intelligence agent. And now he understood the look of gladness in Rosalie’s eyes: He would never find the seventh man and so would abandon his search and live out his life. This was what she had hoped for.
The silver plate in his skull began to ache, and the hatred for the whole world that soured his blood drained the strength from his body and he started to slump toward Rosalie. She caught him as he began to black out, and a stout bailiff, seeing what had happened, helped to carry Rogan out of the courtroom and down to the emergency clinic. Rosalie stayed on the side where Rogan had his gun, feeling the shape of it through the cloth of his jacket. In the clinic she made him lie on one of the four beds and put a screen around him. Then she held up his head and pushed the pills down his throat. In a few minutes the color returned to Rogan’s cheeks and he opened his eyes.
She spoke to him softly, but he didn’t answer, and finally she had to leave him there to attend to someone who had come in for minor medical aid.
Rogan stared at the ceiling. He tried to force his brain to think things out. There was no way the Freisling brothers could have been lying when they put down the same names of their wartime colleagues. And Bailey had admitted that it was von Osteen who was the man Rogan sought. Was it possible, then, that Rosalie had lied to him? No. For Rosalie, it was impossible. There was just one thing to do: Find Bailey and make him tell the truth. But only after he had rested; he felt too weak now. Rogan closed his eyes. He slept for a little while. When he woke up he thought he was in one of his familiar nightmares.
From the other side of the screen came the voice of the chief interrogator who had so long ago tortured him and betrayed his humanity. The voice was powerfully magnetic, ringing with sympathy. It was inquiring after the man who had