The Negotiator

“Bernhardt,” said the man in the camouflage combat suit. “I want to speak to Werner Bernhardt. Use the phone. Bring him here. Now.”

Lenzlinger scrabbled for the house phone on his night table, dialed an extension, and got a bleary response.

“Werner,” he squeaked, “get your arse up here. Now. Yes, my bedroom. Hurry.”

While they waited, Lenzlinger looked at Quinn with a mixture of fear and malevolence. On the black silk sheets beside him the bought-in-Vietnam child whimpered in her sleep, stick-thin, a tarnished doll. Bernhardt arrived, polo-neck sweater over his pajamas. He took in the scene and stared in amazement.

He was the right age, late forties. A mean, sallow face, sandy hair going gray at the sides, gray-pebble eyes.

“Was ist denn hier, Herr Lenzlinger?”

“I’ll ask the questions,” said Quinn in German. “Tell him to answer them, truthfully and fast. Or you’ll need a spoon to get your brains off the lampshade. No problem, sleazebag. Just tell him.”

Lenzlinger told him. Bernhardt nodded.

“You were in the Fifth Commando under John Peters?”

“Ja.”

“Stayed on for the Stanleyville mutiny, the march to Bukavu, and the siege?”

“Ja.”

“Did you ever know a big Belgian called Paul Marchais? Big Paul, they called him.”

“Yes, I remember him. Came to us from the Twelfth Commando, Schramme’s crowd. So what?”

“Tell me about Marchais.”

“What about him?”

“Everything. What was he like?”

“Big, huge, six feet six or more, good fighter, a former motor mechanic.”

Yeah, thought Quinn, someone had to put that Ford Transit van back in shape, someone who knew motors and welding. So the Belgian was the mechanic.

“Who was his closest buddy, from start to finish?”

Quinn knew that combat soldiers, like policemen on the beat, usually form partnerships; trust and rely on one

man more than any other when the going gets really rough. Bernhardt furrowed his brow in concentration.

“Yes, there was one. They were always together. They palled up during Marchais’s time in the Fifth. A South African. They could speak the same language, see? Flemish or Afrikaans.”

“Name?”

“Pretorius—Janni Pretorius.”

Quinn’s heart sank. South Africa was a long way off, and Pretorius a very common name.

“What happened to him? Back in South Africa? Dead?”

“No, the last I heard he had settled in Holland. It’s been a bloody long time. Look, I don’t know where he is now. That’s the truth, Herr Lenzlinger. It’s just something I heard ten years back.”

“He doesn’t know,” protested Lenzlinger. “Now get that thing out of my ear.”

Quinn knew he would get no more from Bernhardt. He grabbed the front of Lenzlinger’s silk nightshirt and swung him off the bed.