Robert into a small, meticulously neat living room. “Wait here, bitte. I will get Hans.”
The house had a low, beamed ceiling, dark wooden floors, and plain wooden furniture. There was a small stone fireplace and lace curtains at the windows.
Robert stood there thinking. This was not only his best lead, it was his only lead. “People come in off the street, buy their ticket, and take the tour. We don't ask for identification. …” There's no place to go from here, Robert thought grimly. If this doesn't work out, I can always place an ad: Will the seven bus passengers who saw a weather balloon crash Sunday please assemble in my hotel room at oh twelve hundred tomorrow. Breakfast will be served.
A thin, bald man appeared. His complexion was pale, and he wore a thick, black mustache that was startlingly out of keeping with the rest of his appearance. “Good afternoon, Herr—?”
“Smith. Good afternoon.” Robert's voice was hearty. “I've certainly been looking forward to meeting you, Mr. Beckerman.”
“My wife tells me you are writing a story about bus drivers.” He spoke with a heavy German accent.
Robert smiled ingratiatingly. “That's right. My magazine is interested in your wonderful safety record and—”
“Scheissdreck!” Beckerman said rudely. “You are interested in the thing that crashed yesterday afternoon, no?”
Robert managed to look abashed. “As a matter of fact, yes, I am interested in discussing that too.”
“Then why do you not come out and say so? Sit down.”
“Thank you.” Robert took a seat on the couch.
Beckerman said, “I am sorry I cannot offer you a drink, but we do not keep schnapps in the house anymore.” He tapped his stomach. “Ulcers. The doctors cannot even give me drugs to relieve the pain. I am allergic to all of them.” He sat down opposite Robert. “But you did not come here to talk about my health, eh? What is it you wish to know?”
“I want to talk to you about the passengers who were on your bus Sunday when you stopped near Uetendorf at the site of the weather-balloon crash.”
Hans Beckerman was staring at him. “Weather balloon? What weather balloon? What are you talking about?”
“The balloon that—”
“You mean the spaceship.”
It was Robert's turn to stare. “The … spaceship?”
“Ja, the flying saucer.”
It took a moment for the words to sink in. Robert felt a sudden chill. “Are you telling me that you saw a flying saucer?”
“Ja. With dead bodies in it.”
“Yesterday, in the Swiss Alps, a NATO weather balloon crashed. There were some experimental military objects aboard the balloon that are highly secret.”
Robert tried hard to sound calm. “Mr. Beckerman, are you certain that what you saw was a flying saucer?”
“Of course. What they call a UFO.”
“And there were dead people inside?”
“Not people, no. Creatures. It is hard to describe them.” He gave a little shiver. “They were very small with big, strange eyes. They were dressed in suits of a silver metallic color. It was very frightening.”
Robert listened, his mind in a turmoil. “Did your passengers see this?”
“Oh, ja. We all saw it. I stopped there for maybe fifteen minutes. They wanted me to stay longer, but the company is very strict about schedules.”
Robert knew the question was futile before he even asked it. “Mr. Beckerman, would you happen to know the names of any of your passengers?”
“Mister, I drive a bus. The passengers buy a ticket in Zurich, and we take a tour southwest to Interlaken and then northwest to Bern. They can either get off at Bern or return to Zurich. Nobody gives their names.”
Robert said desperately, “There's no way you can identify any of them?”
The bus driver thought for a moment. “Well, I can tell you there were no children on that trip. Just men.”
“Only men?”
Beckerman thought for a moment. “No. That's not right. There was one woman too.”
Terrific. That really narrows it down, Robert thought. Next question: Why the hell did I ever agree to this assignment? “What you're saying, Mr. Beckerman, is that a group of tourists boarded your bus at Zurich, and then when the tour was over, they simply scattered?”
“That's right, Mr. Smith.”
So there's not even a haystack. “Do you remember anything at all about the passengers? Anything they said or did?”
Beckerman shook his head. “Mister, you get so you don't pay no attention to them. Unless they cause some trouble. Like that German.”
Robert sat very still. He asked softly, “What German?”
“Affenarsch! All the other passengers were excited about seeing the UFO and those dead creatures in it, but this old man kept complaining about how we had to hurry up to get to Bern because he had to prepare some lecture for the university in the morning …”
A beginning. “Do you remember anything else about him?”
“No.”
“Nothing at all?”
“He was wearing a black overcoat.”
Great. “Mr. Beckerman, I want to ask you for a favor. Would you mind driving out with me to Uetendorf?”
“It's my day off. I am busy with—”
“I'll be glad to pay you.”
“Ja?”
“Two hundred marks.”
“I don't—”
“I'll make it four hundred marks.”
Beckerman thought for a moment. “Why not? It's a nice day for a drive, nicht?”
They headed south, past Luzern and the picturesque villages of Immensee and Meggen. The scenery was breathtakingly beautiful, but Robert had other things on his mind.
They passed through Engelberg, with its ancient Benedictine monastery, and Brünig, the pass leading to Interlaken. They sped past Leissigen and Faulensee, with its lovely blue lake dotted with white sailboats.
“How much farther is it?” Robert asked.
“Soon,” Hans Beckerman promised.
