The Day After Tomorrow_ A Novel - Allan Folsom [264]
“I’m sorry. I don’t—”
The ticket collector smiled. “Your ticket, please.”
“Yes.” Osborn reached in his jacket and gave the ticket collector his ticket. Then he had a thought. “Excuse, me. I’m meeting a man in Bern. He’s coming in on the train from Frankfurt that’s due in at twelve twelve. He—ah, doesn’t know I’m coming, it’s going to be a—surprise.”
“Do you know where in Bern he will be staying?”
“No, I—” That was it right there. Von Holden couldn’t have planned Bern as a final destination either; his main thought would have been to get out of the country as quickly as possible following the shootings. If that was so, the idea that he might have a plane waiting was wrong.
“I think he’s taking another train. Maybe to—” Where would he go? Not back to Germany. Not to an eastern country; there would be too much disruption there. “France maybe. Or Italy. He’s a—salesman.”
The ticket collector stared at him. “Just what is it you are asking me?”
“I—” Osborn grinned sheepishly. The ticket collector had helped clarify his thinking, but he was right, what did Osborn expect him to do? “I guess I was just trying to figure my next step if I missed him. You know, if he’s already gone and not there, waiting for another train.”
“My best suggestion is that you take a Eurail schedule and look over the trains that have left Bern between twelve twelve when he gets there and twelve forty-four, when you do. May I also suggest you have him paged once you get to the station.”
“Paged?”
“Yes, sir.” With that the ticket collector nodded, handed Osborn a train schedule and moved on.
Osborn looked off—“Paged.”
Von Holden waited outside a pastry shop within the depths of the Bern rail station. Vera had gone into the women’s room directly across from him. She was exhausted and had said little on the entire trip but he knew ‘ she’d been thinking of Osborn. And because of that; because she was certain he was taking her to him, he had no doubt she would return to him as she had promised.
The first hour of the trip from Frankfurt to Bern had been his greatest concern. If the black counterman had been less intimidated than he’d seemed when Von Holden had taken him aside and threatened him that skinheads would show up at his door if he didn’t do exactly as he was told, and instead revealed to the police what train he was really on— they would have stopped the train in no time with a battery of police. That hadn’t happened. Nor had he seen any more than the usual station security when they’d reached Bern.
At seven minutes to one, Vera came out of the women’s room and went with him while he purchased two multiday passes on the Eurail system. They were good for travel anywhere on the continent. It would give them flexibility of movement, he told her. What he didn’t tell her was that he could suddenly put them on any train at all without her knowing where it was going.
“Achtung! Herr Von Holden, Telefon anruf, bitte. Herr Von Holden, Telefon, bitte.” Von Holden started. He was being paged over the public address system. What was going on? Who could possibly know he was there?
“Achtung! Herr Von Holden, Telefon anruf, bitte.”
Osborn stood at a bank of phones, his back against the wall. From there he could see most of the station. The ticket windows, shops, restaurants, the foreign money exchange. If Von Holden was in the station at all -which was a long shot, since from the time Von Holden had arrived until now, at least thirteen trains had left Bern, six for cities within Switzerland, one for Amsterdam and the rest for Italy—but if he was there and moved to answer a courtesy telephone, there was every chance Osborn would see him. The other possibility was that he could be waiting for a train on one of the upstairs platforms. Osborn had counted at least eight tracks as they’d come in from Zurich.
“I’m sorry, sir. Mr. Von Holden does not answer,” the operator said in English.
“Would you please try once more, it’s very important.”
The page came again and Von