The Day After Tomorrow_ A Novel - Allan Folsom [230]
“Something is wrong, isn’t it?”
“Not at all. I’ll be back,” he said quickly. Then, avoiding Scholl, he left by a side door and pushed his way through a corridor filled with serving personnel. Moving toward the main reception area, he turned into an alcove and tried to raise the Hotel Borggreve by radio. There was r no reply.
Snapping off the radio, he nodded to a security agent and went out through the main entrance where the others were beginning to arrive. He saw the exceedingly short, bearded Hans Dabritz step out of a limousine and extend his hand to a tall, exquisitely thin, black fashion model, thirty years his junior. Keeping in the shadows, he walked toward the street. Crossing the driveway, he glimpsed Konrad and Margarete Peiper in the backseat of a limousine as it passed him. Behind them was a solid line of limousines waiting to turn in through the main gate. If Von Holden called for his, it would be at least ten minutes before it arrived. And right now ten minutes was far too long to stand passively by waiting for a limousine. Across the street, he saw activist Gertrude Biermann get out of a taxi and cross determinedly toward him, her thick ankles all too visible beneath the loden green of her military overcoat. As she reached the main entrance, her plain, militant appearance caused a rush of security personnel. And she reacted in kind, baring her temper as well as her invitation. Across, the taxi she had arrived in was still by the curbside, waiting to pull out in traffic. Quickly Von Holden moved to it, opened the rear door and got in.
“Where do you want to go?” the taxi driver asked, staring over his shoulder at the river of oncoming headlights then abruptly accelerating off with a squeal of tires.
That afternoon after he’d made love to Joanna in her room at the house on Hauptstrasse, Von Holden had immediately fallen asleep. And even though it had been only for a few minutes, it had been long enough for the dream to come back. Overwhelmed by the horror, he’d awakened with a shout, soaked in sweat. Joanna had tried to comfort him but he’d pushed her aside and drenched himself in the rush of an ice-cold shower. The water and press of time revived him quickly and he blamed the whole episode on exhaustion. But it was a lie. The dream had been real. The “Vorahnung,” the premonition, had come back. It had been there again the moment he put his hand on the limousine telephone and felt the jolt of fear that there would be no answer when he dialed. That even before he called, he knew something had gone dreadfully wrong.
“I asked you where you wanted to go?” the driver said again. “Or should I drive around in circles while you make up your mind?”
Von Holden’s eyes went to the driver’s reflection in the mirror. He was young, twenty-two at most. Blond, smiling and chewing gum. How was he to know there was only one place his passenger could go?”
“The Hotel Borggreve,” Von Holden said.
116
* * *
LESS THAN ten minutes later the taxi turned onto Borggrevestrasse and immediately stopped. The street was blocked off by a police barricade with fire trucks, ambulances and police cars. In the distance, Von Holden could see flames reaching into the night sky. It was exactly what, he should have seen if everything had gone as planned. But with no communication with the operatives, there was no way to know for certain what had happened.
Suddenly Von Holden’s heart began to palpitate violently and he broke into a cold sweat. The palpitations increased. It felt as if someone were tying a knot inside his chest. Terrified, struggling to breathe, he put his hands out beside him for fear he would black out and fall over. Somewhere he thought he heard the taxi driver ask him where he wanted to go now, because the police were kicking everyone out of the area. Reaching up, he clawed at his collar, his fingers fumbling with his tie. Finally he tore it free and lay back, gasping for air.
“What’s the matter?” the driver turned around in his seat