Voices of the Dead Read Online Free PDF

eyes staring at him, mustache and goatee, dark hair flecked with gray, early fifties. Something familiar about him.
    “Name’s Ernst Hess,” Taggart said.
    “Who is he?”
    “German diplomat. That’s all I know.”
    “Was he hurt?”
    “I don’t think so. Why?”
    “There was blood in the car and blood on his pants.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “I’ve got my sources.” Harry sipped his drink.
    “What do you mean you’ve got your sources?”
    Harry told him about Coco.
    “You investigating this on your own now?”
    “I’m trying to find out what happened.”
    Taggart looked offended, like Harry was stepping on his toes.
    “Look, I appreciate everything you’re doing,” Harry said. “I’m not trying to get in your way. But I’ve got to find out who he is and where he is.”
    “My guess, on a plane back to Germany. Get out of town, avoid any further embarrassment. What do you think?”
    “I don’t know,” Harry said. Taggart’s conclusion made sense but he wasn’t so sure. Taggart picked up the beer bottle and drained it.
    “Another one?” Harry said.
    Taggart shook his head. “Got to get back to the office. What about you?”
    “I have to go to the hospital get the medical examiner’s report, official cause of death, and have Sara’s body shipped home.”
    “Take care of yourself.” Taggart slid off the bar stool and they shook hands.
    Harry went back up to his room. Found a phonebook in the drawer of the bedside table. He looked up the German Embassy, got the phone number and made a call.
    “German Embassy, how may I direct your call?” a woman said, Berlin accent.
    “Will you connect me with Herr Ernst Hess, please?” Harry said in German.
    “I am sorry, Herr Hess is out of the building. May I take a message?”
    “I’ll call him back,” Harry said.
    Harry dialed the front desk and asked where the nearest car rental place was, and found out there was an Avis office right down the street. He rented a black Mustang with tan interior. He studied a map of DC that came with the car, and found Reservoir Road. It ran east and west just north of Georgetown University.
    He stopped at a sporting goods in West Village and bought binoculars. Then he drove to the embassy and parked across the street in a metered space in front of a redbrick colonial. The embassy was nothing like he expected. It was a modern six-storey steel and glass building inside a gated complex. There was a guard shack with a security gate, and a wide sweeping driveway that extended from the street to the building. Harry watched visitors drive in, have their ID checked by a security guard, then drive up to the entrance and park.
    He unfolded the Xerox shot of Hess that Taggart had given him and waited.
    At 6:15, a black Mercedes-Benz, twin of the one that had hit Sara, drove in the gate and pulled up to the front door. Harry zoomed in with the binoculars, turned the dial, adjusting the distance, and saw a man in a dark suit, white shirt and tie get out the left rear door and walk around the car, talking to a silver-haired guy getting out on the opposite side. Harry had gotten a good look at him, comparing what he saw to the mug shot of Hess, and was sure it was him. The Mercedes pulled away. Hess and the other guy went in the embassy.
    At 7:55, the black Mercedes returned, stopped at the guard shack and pulled up in front of the building. He looked through the binoculars, saw Hess and two other men come out and get in the car.
    Harry followed the Mercedes down Pennsylvania Avenue to Wisconsin, took a right and then a left on M Street, and a right on Pennsylvania Avenue past George Washington University to 17th Street, catching glimpses of the White House, Richard Nixon probably in there somewhere, shaving. He’d read an article that said, on occasion, Nixon had to shave five times a day.
    On his right was the Washington Monument, and in the distance the arched dome of the Capitol. The Mercedes pulled over in front of