The Sky Is Falling

THAT EVENING ATDULLES airport, Dana boarded a Lufthansa jet to Dȹsseldorf. She had telephoned Steffan Mueller, who worked at Kabel Network to tell him she was on her way. Dana's mind was filled with what Matt Baker had told her. If Dieter Zander blamed Taylor Winthrop for  -

"Guten Abend. Ich heisse Hermann Friedrich. Ist es das ersten mal das sie Deutschland besuchen?"

Dana turned to look at her seat partner. He was in his fifties, trim, with an eye patch and a full mustache.

"Good evening," Dana said.

"Ah, you are American?"

"Yes."

"Many Americans come to Dȹsseldorf. It is a beautiful city."

"So I've heard."And his family had died in a fire.

"This is your first visit?"

"Yes."Could it have been a coincidence?

"It is beautiful, beautiful. Dȹsseldorf is divided by the Rhine River, you know, into two parts. The older part is on the right bank - "

Steffan Mueller can tell me more about Dieter Zander.

" - and the modern part is on the left bank. Five bridges connect the two sides." Hermann Friedrich moved a little closer to Dana. "You are visiting friends, perhaps, in Dȹsseldorf?"

It's beginning to fit together.

Friedrich leaned a little closer. "If you are alone, I know a - "

"What? Oh. No, I'm meeting my husband there."

Hermann Friedrich's smile faded. "Gut. Er ist ein glȹcklicher Mann."

There was a line of taxis out in front of the Dȹsseldorf International Airport. Dana took one to the Breidenbacher Hof in the center of town. It was an elegant old hotel with an ornate lobby.

The clerk behind the desk said, "We were expecting you, Miss Evans. Welcome to Dȹsseldorf."

"Thank you." Dana signed the register.

The clerk picked up the telephone and spoke into it. "Der Raum sollte betriebsbereit sein. Hast." He replaced the receiver and turned to Dana. "I'm so sorry, Fraulein, your room is not quite ready. Please have a bite to eat as our guest, and I will call you as soon as the maid is through cleaning it."

Dana nodded. "Very well."

"Let me show you to the dining salon."

Upstairs in Dana's room, two electronics experts were putting a camera in a wall clock.

Thirty minutes later Dana was in her room, unpacking. Her first telephone call was to Kabel Network.

"I've arrived, Steffan," Dana said.

"Dana! I could not believe you were really coming. What are you doing for dinner?"

"I hope I'm having it with you."

"You are. We're going to Im Schiffchen. Eight o'clock?"

"Perfect."

Dana was dressed and going out the door when her cell phone rang. She hurriedly took it out of her purse.

"Hello?"

"Hello, darling. How are you?"

"I'm fine, Jeff."

"And where are you?"

"I'm in Germany. Dȹsseldorf. I think I'm finally onto something."

"Dana, be careful. God, I wish I were with you."

So do I, Dana thought. "How is Rachel?"

"The chemotherapy treatments are draining her. It's pretty rough."

"Is she going to be - ?" She could not finish the sentence.

"It's too early to tell. If the chemotherapy is effective, she has a good chance of going into remission."

"Jeff, please tell her how sorry I am."

"I will. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Thanks, I'm fine."

"I'll call you tomorrow. I just wanted to tell you I love you, sweetheart."

"I love you, Jeff. Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

Rachel came out of her bedroom. She had on a robe and slippers, and a Turkish towel was wrapped around her head.

"How is Dana?"

"She's fine, Rachel. She asked me to tell you how sorry she is."

"She's very much in love with you."

"I'm very much in love with her."

Rachel moved closer to him. "You and I were in love, weren't we, Jeff? What happened?"

He shrugged. "Life. Or I should say "lives." We led separate ones."

"I was too busy with my modeling career." She was trying to fight back tears. "Well, I won't be doing that again, will I?"

He put his arms on her shoulders. "Rachel, you're going to be fine. The chemotherapy is going to work."

"I know. Darling, thank you for being here with me. I couldn't have faced this alone. I don't know what I would do without you."

Jeff had no answer to that.

Im Schiffchen was an elegant restaurant in a fashionable part of Dȹsseldorf. Steffan Mueller walked in and grinned as he saw Dana.

"Dana! Mein Gott. I haven't seen you since Sarajevo."

"It seems forever, doesn't it?"

"What are you doing here? Did you come for the festival?"

"No. Someone asked me to look up a friend of his, Steffan." A waiter came up to the table and they ordered drinks.

"Who's the friend?"

"His name is Dieter Zander. Have you heard of him?"

Steffan Mueller nodded. "Everyone has heard of him. He's quite a character. He was in a big scandal. He's a billionaire, but he was stupid enough to swindle some stockholders and get caught. He should have gotten twenty years, but he pulled some strings and they let him out in three. He claims he's innocent."

Dana was studying him. "Is he?"

"Who knows? At the trial he said Taylor Winthrop framed him and stole millions of dollars. It was an interesting trial. According to Dieter Zander, Taylor Winthrop offered him a partnership in a zinc mine, supposed to be worth billions. Winthrop used Zander as a front man, and Zander sold millions of dollars' worth of stock. But it turned out the mine was salted."

"Salted?"

"There was no zinc. Winthrop kept the money and Zander took the fall."

"The jury didn't believe Zander's story?"

"If he had accused anyone but Taylor Winthrop, they might have. But Winthrop is kind of a demigod." Steffan looked at her curiously. "What's your interest in this?"

Dana said evasively, "As I said, a friend asked me to look up Zander."

It was time to order dinner.

The meal was delicious. When it was over, Dana said, "I'm going to hate myself in the morning. But it was worth every bite."

When Steffan dropped Dana off at the hotel, he said, "Did you know the teddy bear was invented here by a woman named Margarete Steiff? The cuddly little animal became popular all over the world."

Dana was listening, wondering where this was leading.

"We have real bears here in Germany, Dana, and they're dangerous. When you meet Dieter Zander, be careful. He looks like a teddy bear, but he's not. He's a real bear."

Zander Electronics International occupied an enormous building on the industrial outskirts of Dȹsseldorf. Dana approached one of the three receptionists in the busy lobby.

"I want to see Mr. Zander."

"Do you have an appointment?"

"Yes. I'm Dana Evans."

"Gerade ein Moment, bitte."The receptionist spoke into the telephone, then looked up at Dana. "Fraulein, when did you make the appointment?"

"Several days ago," Dana lied.

"Es tut mir leid. His secretary has no record of it." She spoke into the phone again, then replaced the receiver. "It is not possible to see Mr. Zander without an appointment."

The receptionist turned to a messenger at the desk. A group of employees was coming in the door. Dana stepped away from the desk and joined them, moving into the center. They got into the elevator.

As it started up, Dana said, "Oh, dear. I forgot what floor Mr. Zander is on."

One of the women said, "Vier."

"Danke,"Dana said. She got off on the fourth floor and walked over to a desk with a young woman behind it. "I'm here to see Dieter Zander. I'm Dana Evans."

The woman frowned. "But you have no appointment, Fraulein. "

Dana leaned forward and said quietly, "You tell Mr. Zander that I'm going to do a national television broadcast in the United States about him and his family unless he talks to me, and that it would be in his interest to talk to menow. "

The secretary was studying her, confused. "Just a moment. Bitte. " Dana watched her get up, open a door markedPRIVAT , and step inside.

Dana looked around the reception office. There were framed photographs of Zander Electronics factories around the world. The company had outlets in America, France, Italy...countries where the Winthrop murders had taken place.

The secretary came out a minute later. "Mr. Zander will see you," she said disapprovingly. "But he only has a few minutes. This is most - most unusual."

"Thank you," Dana said.

Dana was ushered into a large paneled office. "This is Fraulein Evans."

Dieter Zander was seated behind an enormous desk. He was in his sixties, a large man with a guileless face and soft brown eyes. Dana remembered Steffan's story of the teddy bear.

He looked at Dana and said, "I recognize you. You were the correspondent in Sarajevo."

"Yes."

"I do not understand what you want with me. You mentioned my family to my secretary."

"May I sit down?"

"Bitte."

"I wanted to talk to you about Taylor Winthrop."

Zander's expression narrowed. "What about him?"

"I'm doing an investigation, Mr. Zander. I believe Taylor Winthrop and his family were murdered."

Dieter Zander's eyes turned cold. "I think you had better leave now, Fraulein. "

"You were in business with him," Dana said. "And - "

"Leave!"

"Herr Zander, I suggest that it would be better for you to discuss this with me privately than for you and your friends to watch it on television. I want to be fair. I want to hear your side of the story."

Dieter Zander was silent for a long time. When he spoke, there was a deep bitterness in his voice. "Taylor Winthrop wasscheisse. Oh, he was clever, very clever. He framed me. And while I was in prison, Fraulein, my wife and children died. If I had been home...I could have saved them." His voice was filled with pain. "It was true I hated the man. Butmurder Taylor Winthrop? No." He smiled his teddy-bear smile. "Auf wiedersehen, Miss Evans."

Dana telephoned Matt Baker. "Matt, I'm in Dȹsseldorf. You were right. I may have hit pay dirt. Dieter Zander was involved in a business deal with Taylor Winthrop. He claims that Winthrop framed him and sent him to prison. Zander's wife and children died in a fire while he was behind bars."

There was a shocked silence. "They died in afire ?"

"That's right," Dana said.

"The same way Taylor and Madeline died."

"Yes. You should have seen the look in Zander's eyes when I talked about murder."

"It all fits, doesn't it? Zander had a motive to wipe out the entire Winthrop family. You were right about the murders all the time. I - I can hardly believe it."

"It sounds good, Matt, but there's no proof yet. I have two more stops to make. I'm leaving for Rome in the morning," Dana said. "I'll be home in a day or two."

"Take care of yourself."

"Deal."

At the FRA headquarters, three men were watching Dana on a big wall television screen talking on the telephone in her hotel room.

"I have two more stops to make," she said. "I'll be home in a few days...I'm leaving for Rome tomorrow morning."

The men watched as Dana replaced the receiver, rose, and walked into the bathroom. The scene on the screen switched to a hidden peephole camera in a bathroom medicine cabinet. Dana started to undress. She slipped off her blouse and bra.

"Man, look at those tits!"

"Spectacular."

"Wait. She's taking off her skirt and panties."

"Fellows, look at that ass! I want a piece of that."

They watched Dana get into the shower and close the shower door. The door began to steam up.

One of the men sighed. "That's it for now. Film at eleven."

The chemotherapy treatments were hell for Rachel. The chemicals Adriamycin and Taxotere were given intravenously from a bag, and the process took four hours.

Dr. Young said to Jeff, "This is a very difficult time for her. She's going to feel nauseous and drained and she'll suffer a loss of hair. For a woman, that can be the most devastating side effect of all."

"Right."

The following afternoon Jeff said to Rachel, "Get dressed. We're going for a ride."

"Jeff, I really don't feel up to - "

"No arguments."

And thirty minutes later they were in a wig shop and Rachel was trying on wigs, smiling and saying to Jeff, "They're beautiful. Do you like the long one or the short one?"

"I like them both," Jeff said. "And if you get tired of these, we'll come back and change you into a brunette or a redhead." His voice softened. "Personally, I like you the way you are."

Rachel's eyes filled with tears. "I like you the wayyou are."