The Apocalypse Watch (39 page)

“What is it?”

“Who’s Gerhardt Kroeger?”

“
What?
”

“You heard me, and it’s obvious that you’ve heard the name before. He’s a doctor.”

Kroeger was off limits to the Deuxième. Moreau was out of the loop! Was he fishing?

“I’m not sure I have heard it, Claude. Gerhardt … Kroeger, was it?”

“Now you’re positively insulting. Again, I’ll let it pass, for my information is too important. Kroeger followed me and stopped me during my evening stroll. In short words, he made it plain that I either directed him to Harry Latham or I was a dead man.”

“I can’t believe this! Why would he come to
you
?”

“I asked him the same question and his answer was one I might have expected. I have people in Germany, as I do in most countries. A year ago I negotiated for the life of one man being held by a skinhead crowd in Mannheim. I got him out for roughly six thousand dollars American, a bargain, I’d say. Still, they had the name of the Deuxième, and knew the arrangement could not have been made without my approval.”

“But you never heard of Gerhardt Kroeger before?”

“Not until last night, I just told you that. I went back to my office and searched our records for the past five years; there was nothing. By the way, he’s staying at the Hotel Lutetia, room eight hundred, and he expects me to call him.”

“For God’s sake,
take
him!”

“Oh, he won’t leave, Wesley, I can assure you of that. But why not play with him a bit? He certainly doesn’t work solo, and we’re looking for bigger fish.”

A wave of relief spread over Sorenson. Claude Moreau was clean! He never would have offered up Gerhardt
Kroeger, hotel and room number included, if he were working for the Brotherhood.

“If it makes you feel any better,” said the director of Cons-Op, “I was excluded myself for a while. Guess why? Because we worked together, specifically Istanbul, where you had the grace to save my ass.”

“You would have done the same for me.”

“That’s what I angrily told the Agency, and what I’m going to tell them again, even angrier.”

“One moment, Wesley,” said Moreau slowly. “Speaking of Istanbul, do you remember when the
apparatchiks
of the KGB believed you were a double, actually an informer for their superiors in Moscow?”

“Certainly. They lived like the suleimans with the riches of the Topkapi at their disposal. They were frightened to death.”

“So they took you into their confidence, did they not?”

“Naturally, telling me things—anything—to justify their lifestyles. Most of it was rubbish, but not all.”

“But they
did
take you into their confidence, no?”

“Yes.”

“Then, for the moment, let things stay the way they are. I’m still on the outside, not to be trusted. Perhaps I can play with Herr Doktor Kroeger and learn things.”

“Which means you need something first.”

“ ‘Anything,’ as you said, referring to Istanbul. It doesn’t have to be accurate, but it should be relatively acceptable.”

“Like what?”

“Where is Harry Latham?”

There was no Harry Latham. The doubts returned to the former deep-cover intelligence officer
. “Even I don’t know that,” said Sorenson.

“I don’t mean where he
really
is,” broke in Moreau, “just where he might be. Something they would believe.”

The doubts receded
. “Well, there’s an organization called the Antinayous—”

“They know about it,” interrupted Moreau. “Those people are untraceable. Something else.”

“They certainly know about Witkowski and the De Vries woman—”

“They certainly do,” agreed the Deuxième chief. “Give me someplace where, with a little research, they could learn how your people operate.”

“I suppose that would be Marseilles. We follow up on the drug interdictions; too many of our people have been bought or disappeared. Actually, we’re fairly obvious if anyone’s looking. It’s a deterrent.”

“That’s good. I’ll use it.”

“Claude, I’ll be honest, I want to clear you over here! It’s insufferable that you’re under suspicion.”

“Not yet, my old friend. Remember Istanbul. We’ve played these games before.”

In Paris, Moreau hung up the phone, once more leaning back in his chair, his eyes on the ceiling, his thoughts bouncing from one fragment of information to another. He was now in the race to the finish. The risks he was taking were gargantuan, but he could not stop.
Revenge
, it was all that mattered.

S
ince Drew Latham had supposedly departed this world, his Deuxième car had been withdrawn. In its place, Witkowski had ordered embassy Transport to supply security measures: three personnel on eight-hour shifts, and an unmarked vehicle kept available for an unnamed army officer and his lady, at the moment in the rue Madeleine. The colonel made it clear to the marines, who would be on rotation duty, that should they recognize the officer, his identity was to remain secret. If it did not, certain “gyrenes” would be sent back to Parris Island along with the lowest recruits, their accomplishments stricken from their records.

“You don’t have to say that, Colonel,” said a marine sergeant. “If you’ll forgive me, sir, it’s goddamned demeaning.”

“Then I apologize.”

“You should, sir,” added a corporal. “We’ve been on embassy duty from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur, where real security mattered.”

“Hog damn right!” whispered a second corporal, then louder. “We’re not army—sir. We’re marines.”

“Then I
really
apologize, fellas. Forgive this old G.I. issue. I’m just a fossil.”

“We know who you are, Colonel,” said the sergeant. “You have nothing to worry about, sir.”

“I thank you.”

As the three departed for the bowels of Transport, Witkowski was struck by a comment from one of the corporals. “He shoulda been a marine. Hell, I’d follow that son of a bitch down the barrel of a cannon.”

Stanley Witkowski considered for a moment that it was
the highest praise he had ever received during his entire career. But now there were other things to think about, not the least of which were Drew Latham and Karin de Vries. The confluence of hours and exhaustion dictated that Latham stay in De Vries’s apartment rather than drive out to the Antinayous’ sterile house—actually, the Antinayous’ insisted upon it in the event the target was still being followed. After several days without any untoward occurrence, they would reconsider, but only reconsider. “He has involved himself in things too public for our purposes,” had said an abrupt woman at the Maison Rouge. “We admire him, but we cannot tolerate the remotest possibility of being discovered.”

As to Karin staying at the embassy, there simply was no point. As a member of classified D and R who resided outside the embassy, her address was filed only in Security, and anyone requesting it had to be cleared by the colonel himself. Several male attachés had; they were refused. Added to which, the widow De Vries had once shared a piece of information that greatly relieved him.

“I’m not a poor woman, Colonel. I have three automobiles here in Paris in different garages. I change appearances with each change of vehicle.”

“That takes a load off my mind,” said Witkowski. “Considering the information in your head, it’s damned smart thinking.”

“It wasn’t mine, sir. General Raichert, the supreme commander of NATO, ordered it in The Hague. There the Americans paid for it, but the circumstances were different. I don’t expect it here.”

“You must
not
be poor.”

“I’m committed to what I do, Colonel. The money’s not important.”

That conversation had taken place over four months before, and Witkowski then had no idea how “committed” the new arrival was. He had no doubts now. The telephone on his private line rang, interrupting the colonel’s reverie. “Yes?”

“It’s your wandering angel, Stanley,” said Drew. “Any word from House Red?”

“There’s no room at the inn, at least not for a while. The fact that you’re a mark has them worried.”

“I’m wearing a uniform, your uniform, for Christ’s sake! By the way, you’re a tad bigger in the waist and the ass than I am. The tunic’s fine, however.”

“I’m greatly relieved; it’ll cover the imperfections when the fashion photographers take your picture.… You could be disguised by that actor, Villier, and they’d still want you to stay away.”

“I guess I can’t really blame them.”

“I don’t,” agreed the colonel. “Will Karin put up with you another day or two until I can find proper lodgings?”

“I don’t know, ask her.” Latham’s voice became fainter as he held the phone away from his face. “It’s Witkowski. He wants to know if my lease is up.”

“Hello, Colonel,” said Karin. “I gather the Antinayous are balking.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“It’s understandable.”

“Yes, it is, but I haven’t come up with a suitable alternative. Can you stand him for another day, perhaps two? I’ll arrange something by then.”

“It’s not a problem. He tells me he made his bed this morning.”

“
Hell
, yes,” Drew’s voice was heard in the background. “I’m back in Boy Scout camp with lots of cold showers!”

“Pay no attention to him, Colonel. I believe I mentioned he can be quite childish.”

“He wasn’t at the Trocadéro or the Meurice or the Bois de Boulogne, Karin. Even I’ll give him that.”

“Agreed,” said De Vries, “but if you have difficulties, there’s a possible solution, at least it worked several times in Amsterdam. Freddie would put on one of several uniforms—American, Dutch, English, it didn’t matter—and register at the Amstel for confidential meetings.”

“One of his well-known tricks, then?” asked a wary Witkowski.

“A benign one, Colonel. As Drew told you, your uniform fits him quite well, and I can easily sew tucks in the waist and other places—”

“I’m painfully aware of that other place.… What then; he’s still Latham?”

“With a slight altering of appearance, certainly less so.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“A change of hair color,” she replied, speaking softly, “especially around the temples, where it’s obvious below his officer’s cap, and a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, plain lenses of course, and a false military ID. I can do the hair and supply the glasses if you’ll furnish an identification card. He could then register at any crowded hotel, which I’m sure you can arrange.”

“This is hardly in the embassy’s purview, Karin.”

“From what I understand of Consular Operations, I submit it’s within
its
range of operations.”

“You’ve got me there, I guess. You must really want him out.”

“It’s not the person, Colonel, it’s the fact that he’s a man, seen here only as an American army officer. I doubt that anyone in the building knows that I work for the embassy, but if anyone does or suspects that I do, it compromises Drew, myself, and our objectives.”

“In simple words, your residence could become another target.”

“Far-fetched, perhaps, but not implausible.”

“Nothing’s implausible in this war. I’ll need a photograph.”

“I still have Freddie’s camera. You’ll have a dozen in the morning.”

“I wish I was there to see you dye his hair. That’d be a real hoot.”

De Vries hung up the telephone, walked to a closet in the foyer, opened it, and took out a small suitcase with two combination locks. Latham watched her from the armchair, a drink in his hand. “I trust that’s not holding a quickly assembled automatic weapon,” he said as Karin placed the luggage on the coffee table in front of the couch and sat down.

“Good heavens, no,” she replied, manipulating the combination locks and opening the suitcase. “In truth, I
hope it can help you avoid the necessity of facing such a gun.”

“Hold it. What’s in there? I couldn’t hear you most of the time when you were talking to Stanley. What’s boiling in that awesomely attractive head of yours?”

“This is what Freddie called his ‘emergency traveling case.’ ”

“Already I’d rather not know. Freddie was violent with you and that makes him unfriendly.”

“There were the other years too, Drew.”

“Thanks for nothing. What’s
in
there?”

“Simple methods of disguise, nothing dramatic or mind-boggling. Various pre-glued mustaches, also a couple of chin beards, and numerous eyeglasses … and some basic washable dyes.” She described the last far more quietly.

“What was that?”

“You can’t stay here, my friend,” said Karin, looking at him over the top of the suitcase. “Now, don’t become defensive and take it personally, but the houses and flats here in the Madeleine are like a small upscale neighborhood in America. People talk, and gossip abounds in the cafés and the bakeries. To use your word, it could reach ‘unfriendly’ ears.”

“I accept that, I understand it, but that’s not what I asked you.”

“You’ll be registering at a hotel under a different name, which the colonel will supply, and with a slightly different appearance.”

“
What?
”

“I’m going to dye your hair and your eyebrows with a washable solution. Reddish-blond, I think.”

“What are you
talking
about? I’m no Jean-Pierre Villier!”

“You don’t have to be. Just be yourself; no one will recognize you unless he’s standing a few feet in front of you and staring straight at you. Now, if you’ll please put on the colonel’s trousers, I’ll pin them and adjust the size.”

“You know, you’re crazier than a pissed loon!”

“Can you think of a better solution?”

“Goddammit!” roared Latham, swallowing the remainder of his Scotch. “No, actually, I can’t.”

“On second thought, we’ll do the hair first. Please remove your shirt.”

“How about my trousers? I’d feel more natural, more at home that way.”

“You’re not at home, Drew.”

“Gotcha, lady!”

Moreau picked up his console phone, pressing a button that would record his conversation, and spoke to the Lutetia switchboard. “Room eight hundred, if you please.”

“Certainly, sir.”

“
Yes?
” said the muffled, guttural voice on the line.