The Day After Tomorrow_ A Novel - Allan Folsom [229]
When they came, he would start to give them the information they needed, then excuse himself to go to the John. Not wholly trusting him, one of the men would accompany him. And he wouldn’t protest. As soon as they’d left the room, Natalia would trigger the plastic explosive by remote control. Cadoux would shoot the man with him and Natalia would take out any policemen waiting in the hall way outside. Viktor, Anna and Wilhelm Podl would handle the traffic in the lobby and outside the building. Overall it was exceedingly simple. They were leading their victims into a small box and then exterminating them.
At 3:45 exactly, the meeting broke up. The others went to the hotel and Von Holden drove Cadoux to the grocery nearby to make the call. Once done, they went directly to the hotel, ran over the plan one more time and planted the explosives. Then, telling the others he wanted to talk with Cadoux privately, he closed the door to room 412.
What he’d wanted to do was make Cadoux feel important, that there were no hard feelings from his earlier mistake, because he knew how much Avril Rocard meant to him. Wishing him well, he’d started to go, then turned back realizing he had forgotten to provide Cadoux with a weapon. Opening his briefcase, he took out a nine-millimeter automatic pistol, an Austrian made Glock 18. The Glock 18 could be switched to fully automatic fire and was fitted with a magazine that carried thirty-three rounds, and Cadoux had brightened at the sight of it. “Good choice,” Von Holden remembered him saying.
“One other thing,” Von Holden had said before handing him the gun. “Mademoiselle Rocard is dead. She was killed at the farmhouse near Nancy.”
“What?” Cadoux roared in disbelief.
“Unfortunate. Especially from my point of view.”
“Your point of view?” Cadoux was ash white.
“She was in Berlin at my invitation. We were lovers, or didn’t you know? She enjoyed a good fuck, not the impossible thing she tolerated from you.”
Cadoux came at him in a rush. Screaming with rage. Von Holden did nothing until Cadoux reached him, then he simply lifted the Glock and squeezed off three quick rounds. Cadoux’s body had muffled the report, the slugs barely making a sound. After that he’d put him on the couch in a sitting position and left.
In the distance, Von Holden could see the brightly lit facade of Charlottenburg as they approached. Picking up the phone once more, he punched in the number and waited as it rang. Again he got the same answer. The vehicle was unattended. Hanging up, he stared off. His instructions had been rigidly clear. Immediately following the detonation of the Semtex and what should have been the simple mop-up operation afterward, the four were to leave the hotel and drive off in a blue Fiat delivery truck parked diagonally across the street. They were to go south away from the area, until Von Holden contacted them by car phone for a report. Afterward, they were to leave the truck on Borussiastrasse near Tempelhof Airport, and go off alone and in different directions. By ten o’clock, they were to have been out of the country.
“Is something wrong, Pascal?” Joanna asked.
“No, nothing,” Von Holden smiled at her.
Joanna smiled back. Then they were swinging through the iron gates, over the pavement stone of Charlottenburg’s entryway, and around the equestrian statue of the Great Elector, Friedrich Wilhelm I. In front of them Von Holden could see Scholl’s limousine, and Scholl and Uta Baur getting out. Next, his driver was pulling up. The limousine stopped. The door was opened and a heavyset security guard in a tuxedo extended his hand to Joanna.
Three minutes later they were being shown into the Historical Apartments, the rich, ornate, private living quarters of Friedrich the First and his wife, Sophie-Charlotte. Scholl, suddenly acting like an excited theatrical producer, had Lybarger, Eric and Edward in a corner and was trying to locate a still photographer to take pictures.
Taking Joanna aside, Von Holden asked her to make