Taggert now considered his quarry. Paul Schumann was not stupid, of course. He’d been set up to be a Russian and he’d know that was whom the Germans would be looking for. He’d have ditched his fake identity by now and be an American again. But Taggert preferred not to tell the Germans that; it would be better to produce the dead “Russian,” along with his confederates, a gang-ring criminal and a woman dissident – Käthe Richter undoubtedly had some Kosi-sympathizing friends, adding to the credibility of the Russian assassin scenario.
Desperate, yes.
But, as he steered the white van south over the Stormtrooper-brown canal then east, he remained calm as stone. He parked on a busy street and climbed out. There was no doubt that Schumann would return to the boardinghouse for Käthe Richter. He’d adamantly insisted on taking the woman with him back to America. Which meant that, even now, he wasn’t going to leave her behind. Taggert also knew that he’d come in person, not call her; Schumann knew the dangers of tapped phones in Germany.
Continuing quickly through the streets, feeling the comforting bump of the pistol against his hip, he turned the corner and proceeded into Magdeburger Alley. He paused and examined the short street carefully. It seemed deserted, dusty in the afternoon heat. He casually walked past Käthe Richter’s boardinghouse and then, sensing no threat, returned quickly and descended to the basement entrance. He shouldered open the door then slipped into the dank cellar.
Taggert climbed the wooden stairs, keeping to the sides of the steps to minimize the creaks. He came to the top, eased the doorway open and, pulling the pistol from his pocket, stepped out into the ground-floor hallway. Empty. No sounds, no movement other than the frantic buzzing of a huge fly trapped between two panes of glass.
He walked the length of the corridor, listening at each door, hearing nothing. Finally he returned to the door on which hung a crudely painted sign that read, Landlady.
He knocked. “Miss Richter?” He wondered what she looked like. It had been the real Reginald Morgan who’d arranged for these rooms for Schumann, and apparently they’d never met; she and Morgan had spoken on the phone and exchanged a letter of agreement and cash through the pneumatic delivery system that crisscrossed Berlin.
Another rap on the door. “I’ve come about a room. The front door was open.”
No response.
He tried the door. It was not locked. He slipped inside and noted a suitcase resting open on the bed, clothes and books around it. This reassured him; it meant Schumann hadn’t returned yet. Where was she, though? Perhaps she wanted to collect money she was owed or, more likely, borrow what she could from friends and family. Emigrating from Germany through proper channels meant leaving with nothing more than clothes and pocket money; thinking she’d be leaving illegally with Schumann, she’d get as much cash as she could. The radio was on, the lights. She’d be back soon.
Taggert noticed next to the door a rack containing keys for all the rooms. He found the set to Schumann’s and stepped into the corridor again. He walked quietly up the hall. In a swift motion he unlocked the door, pushed inside and lifted his pistol.
The living room was empty. He locked the door then stepped silently into the bedroom. Schumann was not here, though his suitcase was. Taggert stood in the middle of the room, debating. Schumann was sentimental perhaps in his concern for the woman but he was a thorough professional. Before he entered he would look through the windows in the front and back to see if anybody was here.
Taggert decided to lie in wait. He settled on the only realistic option: the closet. He’d leave the door open an inch or two so he could hear Schumann enter. When the button man was in the midst of packing his bag, Taggert would slip out of the closet and kill him. If he was lucky Käthe Richter would be with him and he could murder her as well. If not, he’d wait in her room. She might arrive first, of course, in which case he could kill her then or wait until Schumann returned. He’d have to consider which was best. He’d then scour the rooms to make certain that there was no trace of Schumann’s real identity and call the SS and Gestapo to let them know that the Russian had been stopped.
Taggert stepped inside the large closet, swung the door nearly shut and undid his top several shirt buttons to alleviate the terrible heat. He breathed deeply, sucking air into his aching lungs. Sweat dotted his forehead and prickled the skin in the pits of his arms. But that mattered not one iota. Robert Taggert was wholly sustained, no, intoxicated, by an element far better than damp oxygen: the euphoria of power. The boy from low, gray Hartford, the boy beaten simply because he was a sharper thinker but a slower runner than the others in his low, gray neighborhood had just met Adolf Hitler himself, the most savvy politician on the face of the earth. He had seen the man’s searing blue eyes regard him with admiration and respect, a respect that would soon be echoed in America when he returned home and reported about the success of his mission.
Ambassador to England, to Spain. Yes, even here eventually, the country he loved. He could go anywhere he wished.
Wiping his face again, he wondered how long he would have to wait for Schumann to return.
The answer to that question came just a moment later. Taggert heard the front door of the boardinghouse open and heavy footsteps in the hall. They continued past this room. There was a knocking.
“Käthe?” came the distant voice.
It was Paul Schumann speaking.
Would he go inside her apartment to wait?
No… The footsteps returned in this direction.
Taggert heard the jangle of the key, the squeak of old hinges and then a click as the door closed. Paul Schumann had walked into the room where he would die.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Heart pounding like any hunter close to his prey, Robert Taggert listened carefully.
“Käthe?” Schumann’s voice called.
Morgan heard the creak of boards, the sound of water running in the sink. The gulp of a man drinking thirstily.
Taggert lifted his pistol. It would be better to shoot him in the chest, front on, as if he’d been attacking. The SS would want him alive, of course, to interrogate him and wouldn’t be happy if Taggert shot the man in the back. Still, he could take no chances. Schumann was too large and too dangerous to confront face-to-face. He’d tell Himmler that he’d had no choice; the assassin had tried to escape or grab a knife. Taggert had been forced to shoot him.
He heard the man walk to the bedroom. And a moment later, the sounds of rummaging through drawers as he filled his suitcase.
Now, he thought.
Taggert pushed one of the two closet doors open further. This gave him a view of the bedroom. He raised the pistol.
But Schumann wasn’t visible. Taggert could see only the suitcase on the bed. And scattered around it were some books, and other objects. Then he frowned, looking at a pair of shoes sitting in the bedroom doorway. They hadn’t been there before.
Oh, no…
Taggert realized that Schumann had walked to the bedroom but had then slipped off his shoes and eased back into the living room in stocking feet. He’d been pitching books through the doorway onto the bed to make Taggert think he was still there! That meant -
The huge fist crashed through the closet door as if it were spun sugar. The knuckles struck Taggert in the neck and jaw and he saw searing red in his vision as he staggered into the living room. He dropped the pistol and grabbed his throat, pressing the agonized flesh.
Schumann gripped Taggert by the lapels and flung him across the room. He crashed into a table and fell to the floor, where he lay crumpled like the German bisque doll that had landed beside him, unbroken, staring at the ceiling with her eerie, violet eyes.