The Apocalypse Watch (17 page)

“How did Harry get these names?”

“I haven’t a clue, that’s why I’ve got to see him,
talk
to him!”

“Why? You sound so disturbed.”

“Because one of those names is a man I’m working with, a man in whose hands I’d put my life without thinking twice. How do you like them apples?”

“Disregarding the grammar, I don’t understand you.”

“It’s idiosyncratic, Madame Linguist. I’m told it stems from an old trick apple growers used, placing their best specimens on top of a barrel they were selling, while underneath there were rotten ones.”

“It still eludes me.”

“Why not? It’s probably apocryphal.”

“You sound like your brother, without his clarity.”

“Clarity is what I need from him now.”

“Regarding this man you’re working with, of course.”

“Yes. I can’t
believe
it, but if Harry’s right and I meet with him later this afternoon, which I’m to do, it could be the dumbest decision I could make. Fatally dumb.”

“Put him off. Tell him something important has come up.”

“He’ll ask what it is, and at the moment he has every right to know. Among other not-so-incidentals, an alert employee of his saved my life barely a half hour ago on the Gabriel.”

“Perhaps it was meant to appear that way.”

“Yes, that’s another possible equation. I can see you’ve been around, lady.”

“I’ve been around,” conceded Karin de Vries. “It’s Moreau, Claude Moreau of the Deuxième Bureau, isn’t it?”

“Why do you suggest that?”

“D and R gets the logs of entry and departure for every twenty-four hours. Moreau’s name was listed twice, the night before last, when the first attack was made on you, and then the next morning, when the German ambassador arrived. The pattern was obvious. Several colleagues remarked that they could not remember when any member, much less the head, of the Deuxième had ever come to the embassy.”

“I won’t confirm your suggestion, naturally.”

“You don’t have to, and I agree with you completely. To associate Moreau in any way with the neos strikes me as ludicrous.”

“The exact word I heard from Washington less than ten minutes ago. Still, Harry brought it out. You know my brother. Could he have been fooled?”

“The word ludicrous again comes to mind.”

“Turned?”

“
Never!
”

“So, as my extremely experienced boss, who worked with Moreau in the bad days, and who also agrees with us, said, ‘Where the
hell
are we?’ ”

“There has to be an explanation.”

“That’s why I have to talk to Harry.… Whoa, hold it. You’re pretty opinionated about Moreau. Do you know him?”

“I know that East German intelligence was frightened to death of him, as subsequently were the neos, for he recognized the links between the Stasi and the Nazis before anyone else, except possibly your brother. Freddie
met him once, a debriefing in Munich, and came back exuberant, claiming Moreau was a genius.”

“So to recap, where are we really?”

“You have an expression in the United States that’s uniquely American,” said Karin. “ ‘Between a rock and a hard place.’ I think it fits, at least until you can talk to Harry, which, for your own safety, you cannot do from either the Meurice or the embassy.”

“They’re the only numbers he has,” protested Drew.

“I should like to ask for your trust once more. I have friends here in Paris from the old days in Amsterdam, friends you
can
trust. If you wish, I’ll go further and give their names to the colonel.”

“What for? Why?”

“They can hide you, yet you can still operate here in Paris; they’re less than forty-five minutes from the city. And I myself can reach Moreau with the most plausible explanation there is—the truth, Drew.”

“Then you
do
know Moreau.”

“Not personally, no, but two Deuxième staff interviewed me before I came to the embassy. The name De Vries will accord me the courtesy of speaking to him personally, believe that.”

“I do. But what’s the truth, that he himself is under suspicion?”

“Another truth. Three attempts have been made on your life, and your natural concern aside—”

“Call it by its rightful name,” Latham broke in. “The word is fear. I was almost killed each time and my nerves are a lot frayed—like in
afraid
.”

“Very well, that’s honest; he’ll accept it.… Your fear for your own life aside, you must meet with your brother who’s flying over from London—day and time unknown—and you can’t risk his life, either, by being in the open. You’re going under for a few days and will contact him when you come out. Naturally, I have no idea where you are.”

“There’s a large gap. Namely, why are
you
my conduit?”

“Yet another truth that overrides the lie and will be
substantiated by Colonel Witkowski, an intelligence rock whom everyone respects. He’ll confirm that my husband worked with your brother. Moreau assumes you knew that, and therefore easily understands why you came to me to act as your intermediary.”

“Two more gaps,” Drew pressed quietly, once again nervously glancing around the now-crowded brasserie. “One, I
didn’t
know—Witkowski had to tell me; and two, why didn’t I use
him
?”

“Old-timers like Stanley Witkowski, smart, even brilliant veterans of the ‘bad days,’ as you called them, know the pecking order better than any of us. To get things done, really accomplished, he has to operate from his niche. He’s in a position now to confirm things, not to initiate them. Can you understand that?”

“It’s one of the things I’ve always objected to, but, yes, I can. We put some of our best minds into a pasture-hold mode because either their retirements are coming up or they never quite made enough of a name for themselves to go for the next level of retirement. It’s so goddamned dumb, especially in our business, because the quiet ones invariably make it possible for the ‘names’ to succeed. How many deep-cover legends became legends because they were guided by the quiet ones.… Sorry, again I’m rambling; it takes my mind off the possibility that someone in this very Parisian brasserie may get up and take a shot at me.”

“It’s quite unlikely,” said De Vries. “We’re close to the embassy, and you’ve no idea how sensitive the French are to their lack of control over terrorism.”

“So are the British, but people get killed outside of Harrods.”

“Not often, and the English have isolated their primary enemy, the I.R.A., may they rot in hell. The French are targets for so many others. Whole arrondissements are populated with warring factions from abroad. In the Scandinavian countries, too, the protests grow more violent, say nothing of the Netherlands—the most peaceful of people, where the Right and the Left clash incessantly.”

“Add Italy, the Mafia corruption of Rome tearing people
apart, men fighting in Parliament, bombs going off. And take Spain, where the Catalonians and the Basques bear more than arms, they bear generations of resentment. And there’s the Middle East, where Palestinians kill Jews and Jews kill Palestinians, each blaming the other, while in Bosnia-Herzegovina full-fledged massacres take place between people who used to live together, and nobody appears to want to do anything. It’s everywhere. Discontent, suspicion, name-calling … violence. It’s as though some terrible grand design is being shaped.”

“What are you saying?” asked De Vries, staring at him.

“They’re all meat for the new Nazi grinders, can’t you
see
that?”

“I hadn’t considered things on such a large scale. It’s rather melodramatically far-reaching, isn’t it?”

“Think about it. If Harry’s list is right, even half right, how long have the discontents everywhere been approached and told that their grievances can be addressed, the grievers crushed once the great new order is in place?”

“That’s not the ‘new order’ you Americans have talked about, Drew. Yours is a far more benevolent agenda.”

“Suppose again. Suppose it’s all a code for something else, a ‘new order’ going back fifty years. The New Order of the Reich to last a thousand years.”

“That’s preposterous!”

“Yes, it is,” agreed Latham, leaning back in the booth and breathing hard. “I took it to its zenith, because you’re right, it couldn’t happen. But a large
part
of it could happen, right here in Europe, the Balkans, and the Middle East. Then what’s the next step? After the multiple uprisings of people against people, religion against religion, new nations breaking away from the old?”

“I’m trying to follow you, and I’m not stupid. As Harry might say, where is the clarity?”

“Nuclear weapons! Bought and sold on the international markets, and perhaps, with their millions, too many in the hands of the Brotherhood, the new religion, the cure, and maybe, eventually, the refuge for all the discontents the world over, drawn to them, convinced of their
invincibility. It happened in the thirties, and not a hell of a lot has changed in terms of those circumstances.”

“You’re way beyond me,” said Karin, drinking her wine. “I fight a spreading disease, as you called it, that killed Freddie. You see an imminent apocalypse I cannot accept. We’ve passed that stage in civilization.”

“I hope we have, and I hope I’m wrong, and I wish to God I could stop thinking the way I do.”

“You have an extraordinary imagination, very much like Harry’s, except his was—is—
sang-froid
. Nothing
is
until analyzed without emotion.”

“It’s funny you say that; it’s the difference between us. My brother was always so cold, so without feeling, I thought, until a young cousin of ours, a girl of sixteen, died of some kind of cancer. We were kids, and I found him bawling his eyes out behind the garage. When I tried to help him as best I could, he yelled at me and said, ‘Don’t you ever tell anybody I cried or I’ll put a double hex on you!’ Kid stuff, of course.”

“Did you?”

“Of course not, he was my brother.”

“There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“Good Christ, is this a confessional?”

“Not at all. I simply want to know you better. That’s no crime.”

“Okay. I worshiped the guy. He was so smart, so kind to me, running me through exam questions and helping me with my term papers, then in college, even selecting my courses, always telling me I was better than I thought I was, if I would only concentrate. Our dad was always away on one of his digs, so who came up to see me at college, who yelled loudest at the hockey games—Harry, that’s who.”

“You love him, don’t you?”

“I’d be nothing without him. That’s why I damn near threatened him with a hammerlock if he didn’t get me into this business. He didn’t like it, but there was a bastard organization called Consular Operations being formed that apparently wanted jocks who could think. I fit the description and made it.”

“The colonel said you were a terrific hockey player in Canada. He said you should have gone to New York.”

“It was an interlude, a farm team, and I was pretty well paid, but Harry flew to Manitoba and said I had to grow up. So I did; the rest is what I am. The questions over with?”

“Why are you so hostile?”

“I’m not really. I’m good at what I do, lady, but as you’ve pointed out ad nauseam, I’m not Harry.”

“You have your own attributes.”

“Oh, hell, yes. Basic martial arts, but no expert, believe me. All those courses in enemy interrogation and manipulation, psychological and chemical; survival techniques and how to determine which flora and fauna are edible—all that’s ingrained.”

“Then what bothers you so?”

“I wish I could tell you, but I don’t even know myself. I think it’s the absence of authority. There’s a rigid chain of command and I can’t go around it—not even sure I want to. It’s what I said before, the ‘quiet ones’ know more than I do … and now I can’t trust
them
.”

“Give me your phone, please.”

“It’s set for long distance.”

“By pressing F zero one eight you can revert it to Paris and its environs.” De Vries touched the numbers she knew by rote, waited several moments, and spoke. “I’m arrondissement six, please run a check.” She covered the mouthpiece and looked at Drew. “A simple intercept run, nothing out of the ordinary.” Suddenly Karin’s gaze shot downward to the floor, her face frozen, her chin jammed into her throat. She stood up and screamed. “Get out! Everyone get
out
of here!” She grabbed Latham’s arm, yanking him out of the booth, and kept yelling. “
Everyone!
” she roared in French. “Leave your tables and go outside!
Les terroristes!
” The mass exodus was chaotic; several windows were smashed as diners fled, clashing with waiters and busboys, racing to find whatever egresses they could as bewildered, furious management personnel tried to stem the stampede, then reluctantly followed. Out on the avenue Gabriel all watched in horror as the rear
section of the brasserie was blown apart, the impact of the explosion shattering what was left of the windows, sending fragments of glass flying into the street, imbedding themselves into the flesh of faces and through the fabric of clothing into arms, chests, and legs. Pandemonium filled the street as Latham fell over the body of Karin de Vries.

“What did you learn?” shouted Drew, shoving the gun into his belt. “How did you
know
?”

“There’s no
time
! Get up. Follow me!”

T
hey raced down the Gabriel until they reached a deep, shadowed storefront, a
joaillier
whose expensive gems shone more brightly in the relative darkness. Karin yanked him into it; breathless, they both gulped in air before Latham spoke.

“Goddammit, lady, what
happened
? You said that whoever you called was running an intercept check, then you started yelling and all hell broke loose! I want an answer.”

“The check was never made,” replied De Vries, still gasping for breath. “Instead, someone else came on the phone and yelled, ‘Three men in dark clothes, they’re running up and down the street from place to place. They want your friend
out
!’ Before I could ask any questions, I saw two baguettes rolling on the floor toward our booth.”