"Maybe that's because she didn't embark for Cologne, Paul," Kurtz suggested.
"How does she fly to Cologne when she doesn't embark for Cologne?" Alexis objected, slightly missing the point. "Those cretins couldn't trace an elephant through a heap of cocoa."
The neighbouring tables were still empty, and what with Bach on the transistor and Oklahoma over the loudspeakers, there was enough music to drown several heresies at once.
"Suppose she takes a ticket for somewhere else," said Kurtz patiently. "Say, Madrid. She embarks at Orly but takes a ticket to Madrid."
Alexis accepted the hypothesis.
"She takes a ticket Orly-Madrid,and when she gets to Orly she checks in for Madrid. She goes to the departure lounge with her Madrid boarding-card, picks a certain place to wait; waits. Like close to a certain departure gate, why not? Say, departure gate eighteen, which is where she waited. Somebody comes up to her, a girl, speaks the agreed words, they go to the ladies' room, switch tickets. Nicely organised. A really nice arrangement. They switch passports too. With girls, that's no problem. Make-up--wigs--Paul, when you dig down, all pretty girls are the same."
The truth of this aphorism pleased Alexis very much, for he had recently come to the same gloomy conclusion regarding his second marriage. But he did not dwell on it, for he sensed already the imminence of serious information, and the policeman in him was alive again. "And when she gets to Bonn?" he asked, lighting himself a cigarette.
"She arrives on a Belgian passport. A nice fake, one of a batch made in East Germany. She's met at the airport by a bearded boy on a stolen motorbike with false plates. Tall, young, bearded: that's all the girl knows, it's all anyone knows, because these are good people in the matter of security. A beard? What's a beard? Also he never removed his helmet. In security, these people are way above the average. Outstanding, even. I would say outstanding."
Alex said he had noticed this already.
"The boy's job in this operation is to play cut-out," Kurtz continued. "That's all he does. He breaks the circuit. He meets the girl, he makes sure she isn't being followed, he drives her around a little, takes her to the safe house for briefing." He paused. "There's a stockbroker farm near Mehlem, calls itself the Haus Sommer. A converted barn sits at the end of the south drive. This drive feeds straight on to a slip-road to the autobahn. Under the sleeping accommodation is a garage and in the garage waits an Opel,Siegburg registration, driver already aboard."
This time, to his bemused delight, Alexis was able to join in. "Achmann," he said, below his breath. "The publicist Achmann from Düsseldorf? Are we mad? Why did nobody think of this man?"
"Achmann is correct," said Kurtz approvingly to his pupil."Haus Sommer is the property of Dr. Achmann of Düsseldorf,whose distinguished family owns a flourishing timber business, some magazines, and a fine string of pornography shops. As a sideline, he also publishes romantic calendars of the German landscape. The converted barn belongs to Dr. Achmann's daughter Inge, and has been the scene of many fringe conferences attended mostly by wealthy and disenchanted explorers of the human soul. At the time in question, Inge had lent the house to a friend in need, a boyfriend who had a girlfriend..."
"Ad infinitum,"Alexis completed for him admiringly.
"Clear away the smoke, you find more smoke. The fire is always down the road a little. That is the way these people work. That is how they always worked."
From caves in the Jordan Valley, thought Alexis excitedly. With a skein of surplus wire wound into a dummy. With bikini bombs you can make in your own back yard.
As Kurtz spoke, the face and figure of Alexis underwent a mysterious easing, which had not escaped his notice. The lines of worry and human weakness that so distressed him had been brushed away. He sat well back; he had folded his small arms comfortably across his chest, a rejuvenating smile had settled on his face, and his sandy head had tilted forward in harmonious submission to the great performance of his mentor.
"May I ask what basis you have for these interesting theories?" Alexis enquired, with an unconvincing stab at scepticism.
Kurtz made a show of pondering, though Yanuka's information was as fresh in his mind as if he were still sitting with him back in Munich in his padded cell, holding his head while he coughed and wept. "Well now, Paul, we have both licence numbers of the Opel, and we have a photocopy of the car-hire contract, and we have a signed deposition from one of the participants," he confessed, and--in the modest hope that these meagre clues might decently pass as a basis for the time being--proceeded with his tale.
"The bearded boy, he leaves her at the barn, departs, never to be seen again. The girl, she changes into her neat blue dress, puts on her wig, gets herself up really nicely, in a manner calculated to please the somewhat gullible and over-affectionate Labour Attaché. She gets into the Opel and is driven to the target house by a second young man. On the way, they pause to prime the bomb. Please?"
"This boy," Alexis asked eagerly. "Does she know him, or is he a mystery to her?"
Declining absolutely to elaborate further upon Yanuka's r?le,Kurtz left the question unanswered and merely smiled, yet his evasion was not offensive; for Alexis was by now straining for every detail, and could not expect to have his plate filled every time. Nor was it desirable that he should.
"The mission accomplished, the same driver changes over the number plates and papers and takes the girl to the handsome little Rhineland spa of Bad Neuenahr, where he drops her," Kurtz resumed.
"And then?"
Kurtz became very slow spoken, as if each word were now a danger to his complex plan; as indeed it was. "And there--at a guess--I would say that the girl is introduced to a certain secret admirer of hers--someone who maybe coached her a little in her part that day. Say, in how to arm the bomb. How to set the timer. Rig the booby trap. At a guess, I would say that this same admirer had already rented a hotel room somewhere, and that under the stimulus of their shared achievement, the couple engaged in much passionate lovemaking. Next morning, while they're sleeping off their pleasures, the bomb goes off--later than intended, but who cares?"
Alexis leaned swiftly forward, almost accusing in his excitement. "And the brother, Marty? The great fighter who has killed so many Israelis already? Where was he all this while? In Bad Neuenahr, I think, having a bit of fun with his little bomber girl. Yes?"
But Kurtz's features had set into a rigid impassivity, which the good Doctor's enthusiasm seemed only to intensify.
"Wherever he is, he runs an efficient operation, nicely compartmented, nicely delegated, everything well researched," Kurtz replied, with seeming contentment. "The bearded boy, he had the girl's description, nothing more. Not even the target. The girl knew the number of his motorbike. The driver, he knew the target but not the bearded boy. There's a brain at work."
After which Kurtz appeared to be afflicted by a seraphic deafness; so that Alexis, after further fruitless questioning, felt the need to order up fresh whiskies. The truth was the good Doctor was experiencing a shortage of oxygen. It was as if his life till now had been spent at a lower level of existence, and latterly at a very low level indeed. Now suddenly the great Schulmann was wafting him to heights he had not dreamed of.
"And you are here in Germany to pass this information to your official German colleagues, I suppose," Alexis remarked provocatively.