THE MAN CALLING HIMSELF KLAUS FALKONER RELAXED on the sky deck of the Vergeltung. It was another mild afternoon and the Seventy-Ninth Street Boat Basin was quiet, somnolent under a late-fall sun. On a small table beside him rested a pack of Gauloises and an unopened bottle of Cognac Roi de France Fine Champagne, along with a single brandy snifter.

Pulling a cigarette from the pack, Falkoner lit it with a gold Dunhill lighter, took a deep drag, then gazed at the bottle. With exquisite care, he pulled the old, original nineteenth-century wax from the neck of the bottle, crumpled it into a ball, and dropped it into a pewter ashtray. The cognac shone in the afternoon sun like liquid mahogany, a remarkably dark and rich color for such a spirit. There were a dozen more bottles just like it laid down in the wine cellar in the Vergeltung’s belly — a tiny percentage of the spoils plundered by Falkoner’s predecessors during the occupation of France.

He exhaled, looking around with satisfaction. Another small percentage of those spoils — gold, jewelry, bank accounts, art, and antiques expropriated more than sixty years before — had paid for the Vergeltung. And a very special trideck motor yacht it was: one hundred and thirty feet LOA, twenty-six-foot beam, and six luxurious staterooms. The fuel capacity of fifty-four thousand gallons of diesel allowed the twin eighteen-hundred-horsepower Caterpillar engines to cross any ocean but the Pacific. This kind of independence, this ability to operate both beyond the law and below the radar, was critical to the work that Falkoner and his organization were engaged in.

He took another drag on the cigarette and crushed it out, only half smoked, in the ashtray. He was eager to sample the cognac. Very carefully, he poured out a measure into the tulip snifter, which — given the age and delicacy of the spirit — he’d chosen over the coarser balloon snifter. He gently swirled the glass, sampled the aroma, then — with delicious slowness — lifted it to his lips and took a tiny sip. The cognac bloomed on his palate with marvelous complexity, surprisingly robust for such an old bottle: the legendary “Comet” vintage of 1811. He closed his eyes, took a larger sip.

Quiet footsteps sounded on the teakwood floor, and then there was a deferential cough at his shoulder. Falkoner glanced over. It was Ruger, a member of the crew, standing in the shadows of the flying bridge. He held a phone in one hand.

“Telephone call for you, sir,” he said in German.

Falkoner placed the snifter on the small table. “Unless it’s Herr Fischer calling, I do not wish to be disturbed.” Herr Fischer. Now there was a truly frightening man.

“It is the gentleman from Savannah, sir.” Ruger held the phone at a discreet distance.

“Verlucht,” Falkoner muttered under his breath as he took the proffered phone. “Yes?” he spoke into the mouthpiece. Irritation at having his ritual interrupted added an uncharacteristic harshness to his tone. This fellow was evolving from a nuisance into a problem.

“You asked me to deal with Pendergast decisively,” came the voice on the other end of the phone. “I’m about to do just that.”

“I don’t want to hear what you’re going to do. I want to hear what you’ve done.”

“You offered me assistance. The Vergeltung.”

“And?”

“I’m planning to bring a visitor on board.”

“A visitor?”

“An unwilling visitor. Someone close to Pendergast.”

“Am I to assume this is bait?”

“Yes. It will lure Pendergast on board, where he can be dealt with once and for all.”

“This sounds risky.”

“I’ve worked everything out to the last degree.”

Falkoner expelled a thin stream of air. “I look forward to discussing this with you further. Not on the phone.”

“Very well. But meanwhile, I’ll need restraints — plastic cuffs, gags, rope, duct tape, the works.”

“We keep that sort of thing at the safe house. I’ll have to retrieve it. Come by this evening and we shall go over the details.”

Falkoner hung up, handed the phone to the waiting crew member, and watched as the man receded out of sight. Then he once again picked up the tulip snifter, the look of contentment slowly settling back over his face.

CHAPTER 52

NED BETTERTON DROVE UP THE FDR DRIVE in his rented Chevy Aero, feeling more than a little disconsolate. He was due to return the rental car at the airport in about an hour, and that night he was flying back to Mississippi.

His little reportorial adventure was over.

It was hard to believe that — just a few days earlier — he had been on a roll. He’d gotten a bead on the “foreign fella.” Using the social engineering strategy known as pretexting, he’d called Dixie Airlines and, posing as a cop, gotten the address of the Klaus Falkoner who’d flown to Mississippi almost two weeks before: 702 East End Avenue.

Easy. But then he’d hit a wall. First, there was no 702 East End Avenue. The street was barely ten blocks long, perched right on the edge of the East River, and the street numbers didn’t go that high.

Next, he’d tracked Special Agent Pendergast to an apartment building called the Dakota. But it was a damn fortress, and gaining access proved impossible. There was always a doorman stationed in a pillbox outside the entrance, and more doormen and elevator men massed inside, politely but firmly rebuffing his every attempt and stratagem to enter the building or gain information.

Then he’d tried to get information on the NYPD captain. But there were several female captains and he couldn’t seem to find out, no matter who he asked, which one had partnered with Pendergast or gone down to New Orleans — only that it must have been done off duty.

The basic problem was New York Freaking City. People were tight as shit with information and paranoid of their so-called privacy. He was a long way from the Deep South. He didn’t know how things were done here, didn’t even know the right way to approach people and ask questions. Even his accent was a problem, putting people off.

He had then returned his attention to Falkoner, and almost had a breakthrough. On the chance that Falkoner had used a fake house number on his real street — after all, East End Avenue was an odd choice for a false address — Betterton had canvassed the avenue from end to end, knocking on doors, stopping people in the street, asking if anyone knew of a tall, blond man living in the vicinity, with an ugly mole on his face, and who spoke with a German accent. Most people — typical New Yorkers — either refused to talk to him or told him to fuck off. But a few of the older residents he met were friendlier. And through them, Betterton learned that the area, known as Yorkville, had once been a German enclave. These elderly residents spoke wistfully of restaurants such as Die Lorelei and Café Mozart, about the marvelous pastries served at Kleine Konditorei, about the bright halls that offered polka dances every night of the week. Now that was all gone, replaced by anonymous delis and supermarkets and boutiques.

And, yes, several people did believe they had seen a man like that. One old fellow claimed he had noticed such a man going in and out of a shuttered building on East End Avenue between Ninety-First and Ninety-Second Streets, at the northern end of Carl Schurz Park.

Betterton had staked out the building. He quickly learned it was next to impossible to loiter around outside without attracting attention or causing suspicion. That had forced him to rent a car and make his observations from the street. He had spent three exhausting days watching the building. Hour after hour of surveillance — nobody in or out. He’d run out of money and his vacation clock was ticking. Worse, Kranston had begun calling him daily, wondering where the hell he was, even hinting about replacing him.