The Apocalypse Watch (44 page)

“It’s next on my list. Call me back on my move to the Normandie, and get Karin out of harm’s way. How about the Normandie?”

“For a spook, you’re not entirely subtle, Latham.”

Drew hung up the phone and glanced at his watch. It was past midnight, past seven o’clock in D.C. He picked up the telephone and pressed the numbers for the States.

“Yes?” said the voice of Sorenson.

“It’s your antiques dealer from Paris.”

“Thank heavens! Sorry I was tied up, but that’s another story, another massive headache, if not a catastrophe.”

“Can you tell me?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Then what was so urgent?”

“Moreau. He’s clean.”

“That’s nice to hear. Our embassy isn’t.”

“I gather that, so judgmentwise it’s in your court. If you’re strung out and don’t know where to turn—”

“Hold it, Wes, I have no problem with Witkowski,” interrupted Latham.

“Nor do I, but we don’t know who’s tapped in to him.”

“Agreed. Someone is.”

“Then turn to Moreau. He doesn’t know you’re alive,
so before you do, reach me and I’ll play the scenario for him.”

“He’s still cut out?”

“One of our larger mistakes.”

“Incidentally, Wes, did you ever hear of an Alan Reynolds, embassy comm center?”

“Can’t say as I have.”

“Wish we hadn’t. He was a neo.”

“
Was?
”

“He’s dead.”

“I suppose that’s a blessing.”

“Can’t say that it is. We wanted him alive.”

“Things go wrong sometimes. Stay in touch.”

G
erhardt Kroeger labored over the fax from Bonn, a code book in his left hand, a pencil in his right. Carefully he inserted the proper letters above the coded words of the message. The nearer he came to completing the task, the more excited was his state of mind, excited but controlled, the scientist in him demanding total concentration. Finished at last, elation swept over him. Their informer at the American Embassy had succeeded where the vaunted Blitzkriezer had failed. The mole’s information was flawed, but he had found the surviving Latham! His last source remained nameless, but he claimed it was irrefutable, a person he had cultivated over the years, a woman for whom he had done many favors, now living far beyond her means. She would not lie to him for two specific reasons, the first being her current expensive way of life; the second and far more powerful, the threat of exposure. They were the usual components in keeping an inner source on a chain.

Where the informer was in error was his conviction that the Latham who had survived the assassination attempt was not Harry Latham but his brother, Drew Latham, the Consular Operations officer. Kroeger knew that was preposterous; the evidence was overwhelmingly to the contrary, evidence from so many different quarters, it could not have been manufactured. Beyond the police reports, the press, and the government’s widespread dragnet for the killers, there was the Deuxième’s Moreau and his associate. The latter had
seen
Harry Latham get back on the Metro train after the gunfire. Of all the officials in French Intelligence, Moreau was the last who would dare lie to the Brotherhood. Should he do so, he would become
a pariah, a man disgraced beyond redemption. Scores of financial transfers to his account in Bern guaranteed it.

My inner source
, concluded the message from Bonn,
tells me that Documents and Research mocked up papers for a Colonel Anthony Webster, a military identification card, and an embassy requisition for rooms at the Hotel Inter-Continental on the rue de Castiglione. The same source further states she briefly saw the plastic ID card. The inserted photograph was obviously also mocked, a man with familiar features but with blond hair rather than dark brown, and wearing a uniform and large-framed glasses. Although she has never seen a photograph of Harry Latham, she believes the man in the picture is his brother, Drew Latham, a Consular Operations officer. According to embassy records, authorized by security, the body of Drew Latham was flown back to the family in the United States. However, my own research, including the manifest records of American diplomatic aircraft, shows no such transfer for the date in question. Therefore, in my judgment, the Latham at the Inter-Continental is not Harry Latham but his brother. Together with embassy security and the Dutch woman, De Vries, they have mounted a strategy to entrap a member or members of our Brotherhood. What the nature of the trap is I hope to learn tonight, as I will post myself outside Latham’s hotel, and if it takes all night and all day, I will take him and learn. Or I will kill him in the method prescribed
.

Rubbish! thought Kroeger. Brothers frequently have similar features. Why would the Americans lie about the slain Latham? There was no reason to, and every reason
not
to! Harry Latham’s list was the key to the global search for the reemerging Nazis everywhere. They needed him, which was why they were going to such lengths to keep him alive, from enlisting the contentious Antinayous to issuing false military identification cards and moving him from hotel to hotel. Harry Latham/Alexander Lassiter was an intelligence tiger; he mourned his brother and wanted revenge at all costs. Little did he know that in roughly twenty-eight hours it wouldn’t make any difference to him; he would be dead. But it did to Gerhardt
Kroeger. He had to find him and blow his head apart. Now he knew where to go, hoping rather desperately that their informer had already performed the execution—properly.

It was two-ten in the morning and Kroeger put on his jacket and a light raincoat; the raincoat was necessary if only to conceal the large, heavy-calibered pistol that held six Black Talon shells. Each bullet penetrated the flesh and spread on impact like a lethal Roman candle, leaving total destruction in its wake.

“You’re being picked up at three o’clock sharp,” said Witkowski.

“Not before?” asked Latham.

“Hell, it’s only forty-five minutes. By the time you come down, I want a unit in the lobby and a team in the street. That takes a little organization, proper civilian clothes and all.”

“I approve. What about Karin?”

“She’s out of harm’s way, as you wanted. Blond wig and all, as I think you suggested.”

“Where?”

“Not where you are.”

“You’re all heart, Stanley.”

“You sound like my mother, God rest her soul.”

“Why can’t I wish the same for yours?”

“Because you always want instant gratification, and I won’t permit it.… One of my people will pick up your luggage and attaché case fifteen minutes before you go down. If anyone asks where you’re off to, just tell him you can’t sleep. Another of your strolls outside. We’ll take care of the hotel later.”

“You really believe Reynolds tipped off other neos here in Paris?”

“Frankly, no, because from what we can piece together, his killer platoon is gone—who was he going to reach? No one in Germany could get here in time, and this Kroeger’s a doctor, not an assassin. My judgment is that he’s here to confirm, not to pull any triggers, assuming he knows how. Reynolds was acting solo because he’d been spotted in the
street outside of my place and wanted to make up for it. Killing you would have given him points.”

“We can’t be sure he knew he was spotted, Stanley.”

“Really? Then why didn’t he show up at the embassy in the morning? Remember,
chłopak
, two neos got away while surviving my externals—”

“The fire escapes and the rug, right?” interrupted Drew.

“You’re getting brighter. If A equals B and B equals C, then it’s a good bet that A equals C. Not a bad rule to go by.”

“Now you sound like Harry.”

“Thanks for the compliment. Get yourself ready.”

Latham packed his suitcase rapidly, which was easy because he had barely unpacked, taking out only his civilian trousers and blazer, an embassy attaché’s uniform of the day. Now the waiting began, minutes ticked off within his prison walls. Then his telephone rang; expecting Witkowski, he picked it up. “Yes, what is it now?”

“What is what? It’s Karin, my dear.”

“
Jesus
, where are you?”

“I swore not to tell you—”

“
Bullshit!
”

“No, Drew, it’s called protection. The colonel tells me he’s moving you—please, I don’t care to know where.”

“This is getting ridiculous.”

“Then you don’t know our enemy. I just want you to be careful,
very
careful.”

“You heard about tonight?”

“Reynolds? Yes, Witkowski told me, which is why I’m calling you. I can’t get through to the colonel; his line’s busy, which means he’s constantly on the phone to the embassy, but something occurred to me only moments ago, and someone other than me should know about it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Alan Reynolds frequently came down to D and R on one pretext or another, usually concerning our maps and transportation information.”

“No one thought it was odd?” Latham broke in.

“Not really. It’s easier than calling the airlines or tracking
train schedules, or, even worse, buying road maps in small-lettered French. Ours are in legible English.”

“But you thought it was strange, right?”

“Only after the colonel told me about tonight, not before, frankly. Many of our people take weekend trips all over France, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain. Especially those whose tours in Paris are limited. No, Drew, it was something else, and that
was
strange.”

“What was it?”

“On two occasions when I went back to Transport, I saw Reynolds walking out of the last aisle before the Transport door. I suppose I thought something like, ‘Oh, he has a friend in one of the offices and is arranging a lunch or a dinner,’ or some such thing.”

“And now you’re thinking something else?”

“Yes, but I could be quite wrong. All of us in D and R work with degrees of confidential materials, much of it not deserving the designation confidential, but it’s common knowledge that those in the last aisle, the farthest from the door, deal solely with maximum-classified information.”

“A pecking order?” asked Latham. “From the first to the last aisle degrees of confidentiality?”

“Not at all,” replied Karin. “The offices are simply different. When one is working on highly secret material, he or she moves into the last aisle, where the computers are far more inclusive and the communications set up for instant contact worldwide. I’ve worked there three times since I arrived here.”

“How many offices in the last aisle?”

“Six on each side of the central corridor.”

“Which side did you see Reynolds in?”

“The left side. I turned my head to the left, I remember that.”

“Both times?”

“Yes.”

“What were the days, the dates, you saw him?”

“Good Lord, I don’t know. It was over several weeks, going back a month or two.”

“Try to think, Karin.”

“If I could pinpoint them, I would, Drew. At the time, I simply didn’t consider it important.”

“It is.
He
is.”

“Why?”

“Because your instincts are right. Witkowski says there’s another Alan Reynolds at the embassy, another mole, someone very high up and very inside.”

“I’ll get a calendar and do my best to isolate the weeks, then the days. I’ll try like mad to recall what I was working on.”

“Would it help to get into your office at the embassy?”

“That would mean getting into the supercomputer, which is somewhere below our own cellars. It stores everything for five years because our own papers are destroyed.”

“It can be arranged.”

“Even if it can, I haven’t the vaguest idea how to operate it.”

“Someone does.”

“It’s two-thirty in the morning, my darling.”

“I don’t care if it’s half past the third moon! Courtland can order in whoever operates it, and if he can’t, Wesley Sorenson can, and if
he
can’t, the goddamn President can!”

“Getting angry won’t help, Drew.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, I’m not Harry.”

“I loved Harry, but he was never you either. Do what you have to do. In your anger, which is probably the only way it can be done.”

Latham depressed the lever, disconnecting the call, then immediately dialed the embassy, demanding to speak to Ambassador Courtland. “I don’t care what time it is!” he shouted when the operator objected. “This is a matter of national security, and I’m under direct orders from Washington’s Consular Operations.”

“Yes, this is Ambassador Courtland. What can be so urgent at this hour?”

“Is this phone secure, sir?” asked Latham, lowering his voice to a whisper.

“I’ll put you on hold and take it in another room. It’s constantly swept, and besides, my wife is asleep.” Twenty seconds later Courtland continued on an upstairs telephone. “All right, who are you and what’s this all about?”

“It’s Drew Latham, sir—”

“My God, you’re
dead
! I don’t understand—”

“You don’t have to understand, Mr. Ambassador. Just find our computer whizzes and order them down to the underground super stuff.”

“That’s pretty heavy—my God, you were
killed
!”

“Sometimes we get too complicated, but
please
, do as I ask.… Also, you have the capability. Break into Witkowski’s phone and order him to call me.”

“Where are you?”

“He knows. Do it quickly. I’m expected to leave here in fifteen minutes, but I can’t until I speak to him.”

“All right, all right, whatever you say.… I guess I should mention that I’m glad you’re alive.”

“So am I. Go to it, Mr. Ambassador.”

Three minutes later Latham’s phone rang. “
Stanley?
”

“What the hell’s going on?”

“Get Karin and me to the embassy as soon as possible.” Drew explained in a few emphatic words what De Vries told him about Alan Reynolds.

“A couple of minutes won’t change the scenario, young man. Stick to the schedule I’ve set, and I’ll reroute you to the embassy and meet you both there.”

Latham waited; Witkowski’s marine, in civilian clothes, arrived and took his suitcase and attaché case. “Come down in four minutes, sir,” said the man courteously. “We’re prepared.”