The Apocalypse Watch (58 page)

“I want to talk,” she said.

“About what? I told you what happened.”

“About your safety. The Maison Rouge called—”

“They knew where to
find
you? Here at the
Normandie
?”

“They frequently know things before many of us learn about them ourselves.”

“Then they’re being fed information they goddamned well shouldn’t have!”

“I believe you’re right, but then, we know which side the Antinayous are on.”

“Not necessarily. Sorenson cut them off.”

“He was the most feared deep-cover intelligence officer during the Cold War. He suspects everybody.”

“How do you know that? The deep-cover bit?”

“Partially from you, but mainly from Freddie.”

“
Freddie …?
”

“Of course. The sub-networks protect themselves, Drew. Information circulates. Whom can you count on, whom can you trust? Survival’s the ultimate answer, isn’t it?”

“What did the Maison Rouge call about?”

“Their informers in Bonn and Berlin say that two teams of trained Blitzkrieger are being sent to Paris to find and kill the Latham brother who survived the assault at the inn in Villejuif. The man they believe to be Harry Latham.”

“That’s nothing new, for God’s sake.”

“They say that the number of assassins is between eight and twelve. Not one or two or even three, but a small army is coming after you.”

Silence, and then Latham spoke. “I guess that’s really impressive, isn’t it? I mean, I’m popular beyond my wildest dreams, and I’m not even the guy they want.”

“I’d have to agree with you.”

“But why? That’s the question, isn’t it? Why do they want Harry so badly? His list is out and with the confusion and dissension it’s causing, they’ve got to know it’s to their benefit, so
why
?”

“Would it have something to do with Dr. Kroeger?”

“That cat’s in space without an oxygen helmet. He tells one lie after another, forgetting the lies he told before.”

“I wasn’t aware of that. In what sense?”

“He told Moreau, who he believes is one of them, that he had to find Harry in order to learn the identity of the female traitor in the Brüderschaft valley—”

“
What
traitor?” De Vries interrupted.

“We don’t know and neither did Harry. When he was in London and we talked on the phone, he mentioned something about a nurse who had alerted the Antinayous that he was coming out, but the man who drove the truck that picked him up didn’t elaborate.”

“If that was Kroeger’s lie, it may not have been a lie.”

“Except that he told Witkowski something entirely
different
. He insisted he had to find Harry before the medication he was on wore off and Harry died. Stanley didn’t believe him for a moment and that’s why he wanted to shoot him to the moon with chemicals—to see if he could learn the truth.”

“Which the embassy doctor wouldn’t permit,” said Karin softly. “Now I understand why Witkowski was so upset with him.”

“Which is also why that medical saint is going to be overruled if I have to get Sorenson to blackmail the President.”

“Really? Is he … blackmailable?”

“Everybody is, especially presidents. It’s called political genocide, depending upon which party you belong to.”

“May we get back to another subject, please?”

“What subject?” Latham walked to the desk and the telephone. “I want to fry a doctor who’d rather prolong the life of a slug than prevent the killing of decent people on our side.”

“Which could be
you
, Drew.”

“I suppose so.” Latham picked up the phone.

“
Stop
it and listen to me!” cried De Vries. “Hang up and
listen
.”

“Okay, okay.” Drew replaced the phone and slowly turned, facing her. “What is it?”

“I’m going to be brutally honest with you, my darling—because you’re a man I love.”

“For the moment? Or can I count on a month or two?”

“That’s not only gratuitously unfair, it’s also demeaning.”

“I apologize. Only I’d rather hear
the
man, not
a
man.”

“And
I
loved another, no matter how misguided I was, and I will not apologize for that.”

“Two points for the lady. Go on, be brutally honest.”

“You’re a bright, even brilliant man in your own way. I’ve seen that, watched you, applauded your ability to make quick decisions, as well as your physical prowess—which certainly outstripped my husband’s and Harry’s. But you are
not
Freddie and you are
not
Harry, both of whom lived with the specter of death every morning they woke up and every night when they prowled the streets for black rendezvous. It’s a world you don’t know, Drew, a horrid, convoluted world you’ve never been steeped in—exposed to, yes, but you are not a veteran of its nightmares.”

“Get to the point, I want to make a phone call.”

“Please, I
beg
you, give all the information you have, all the conclusions your imagination has produced, to those who
have
been in that world.… Moreau, Witkowski, your superior, Sorenson. They will avenge your brother’s death; they’re equipped to do it.”

“And I’m not?”

“My
God
, there’s a band of killers coming after you! People with resources and contacts we know nothing about. They’ll be programmed with names, with unlimited funds to corrupt those names, and all it takes is
one
to betray you.
That’s
why the Antinayous called me. Frankly, they think your situation is hopeless unless you disappear.”

“Then we’re back to our original question, aren’t we? Why all this firepower against Harry Latham?
Why?
”

“Let others find out, my darling. Let’s you and I take ourselves out of this horrible game.”

“You and I …?”

“Does that answer your earlier question?”

“It’s so tempting, I could cry like a baby, but it can’t work, Karin. I may not have the experience of the others, but I have something they don’t have. It’s called rage, and along with whatever minor talents I do possess, it makes me the leader of the pack. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, but that’s the way it has to be.”

“I’m appealing to your sense of survival—
our
survival—not your courage, which needs no further proof.”

“Courage hasn’t a damn thing to do with it! I never pretended to be brave, I don’t
like
bravery, it gets idiots killed. I’m talking about a man who happened to be my brother, a man without whom I would have been a high school or a college dropout, by this time a hockey bum with a swollen face, broken legs, and not a dollar to my name. Jean-Pierre Villier told me he owed as much or more than I did to a father he never knew. I disagree. I owe more to Harry because I
did
know him.”

“I see.” Karin was silent as their eyes met, each leveled at the other’s. “Then we’ll see it through together.”

“Hell, I’m not asking you to do that!”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way. I ask only one thing, Drew. Don’t let your rage kill you. I don’t think I could stand losing the only other man I ever loved the same way I lost the first.”

“You can take it to the bank. I have too much to live for.… Now, may I make that phone call? It’s shortly past noon in Washington and I’d like to catch Sorenson before he goes to lunch.”

“You may spoil it for him.”

“I’m sure I will. He doesn’t approve of what I’m doing, but he hasn’t blown the whistle on me for a damn good reason.”

“What’s that?”

“He’d do the same thing himself.”

In Washington, Wesley Sorenson was both annoyed and frustrated. Vice President Howard Keller had faxed him a background list of a hundred eleven senators and congressmen of both parties who would react in outrage over their former colleague’s inclusion as a Nazi, and were perfectly willing to testify. Added to these was another list of potential adversaries, ranging from rejected but still-powerful fundamentalist leaders to fanatical members of the lunatic fringe, both of which would reject the Second Coming of Christ as a political manipulation if it served them. At the bottom of the fax, in his own handwriting, was the Vice President’s summation.

The above clowns are in place, ready, willing, and personally
eager to destroy anyone who even vaguely disagrees with them. I’ve got the lawyers. Along with our good guys, we’ll make muleshit out of the whole passel of assholes! Let’s bring it to the Senate and expose these crap-artist witch-hunters for what they are
.

However, Sorenson wasn’t ready to go that flagrantly public. Much might be gained, but a great deal could be lost. The Sonnenkinder
did
exist, where they were and how high they were still undetermined. The easiest thing for the hunted to do was to become one of the “good guys.” He would call Howard Keller and try to make his position clear. And then his telephone rang, the red line that came directly into his office.

“Yes?”

“It’s your rogue agent, boss.”

“I wish I weren’t—your boss, I mean.”

“Stay with me, we’re making progress.”

“How?”

“Bonn and Berlin are sending out a couple of semi-brigades to find me—find Harry, that is—and eliminate me.”

“That’s
progress
?”

“One step always leads to another, doesn’t it?”

“If I were you, and I speak from experience, I’d get the hell out of Paris.”

“Would you have done that, Wes?”

“Probably not, but it doesn’t matter what I’d have done. The times are different, Latham, ours were easier. We knew who our enemies were, you don’t.”

“Then help me find out. Tell that humanitarian doctor at the embassy to plug all the Amytals we’ve got into Kroeger so we might learn something.”

“He said it could kill him.”

“So kill the son of a bitch. Give us a break! Why are they going to the max to kill Harry?”

“We have certain codes of medical ethics—”

“To hell with them, I’ve got my life too! I’m no advocate of capital punishment because, among other things, it can’t be administered fairly—when was the last time a rich white guy with a high-priced law firm behind him was
sent to the electric chair?—but if there ever was an exception to my stand, it’s Kroeger. I saw that bastard blow apart two innocent hotel clerks with Black Talon bullets simply because they were there! And, furthermore, our benevolent physician at the embassy didn’t say the injections
would
kill him, only that they
could
. Those are better odds than Kroeger gave those two men in the hotel.”

“You’re developing a rather good sense of advocacy debate.… Say I went along with you, got State to go along, what do you think you might learn from Kroeger?”

“For God’s sake, I don’t
know
. But maybe something, anything that could explain the neos’ obsession with taking out Harry.”

“I grant you it’s an enigma.”

“It’s more than that, Wes, it’s the key to a lot more than we can understand.”

“Including Harry’s list perhaps?”

“Possibly. I read the transcript from his debriefing in London. There’s no question that he believed it was authentic, but he allowed for outside disinformation—more in the area of
misinformation
, I grant you, but he considered it.”

“Human error, mistaken names, not dirt,” said Sorenson quietly. “Yes, I remember reading that. If I recall correctly, he was angry at the implication that he was duped, and insisted it was up to the spiders in counterintelligence to ultimately evaluate the material.”

“He wasn’t that precise, but that’s what he was saying.”

“And you think Kroeger might fill in some gaps?”

“Let’s put it this way, I can’t think of anybody else. Kroeger was Harry’s doctor, and strangely enough—probably because Kroeger treated him decently—he had some kind of hold over my brother. At least Harry didn’t hate him.”

“Your brother was too professional to let hatred surface, much less interfere.”

“I realize that, and I admit it’s a fine, very thin line, but I have an idea Harry respected him—maybe
respect
is the
wrong word—but there was a definite attachment. I can’t explain it because I can’t understand it.”

“Perhaps you just said it. The doctor treated him decently, the captor giving attention to the captive.”

“The Stockholm syndrome again? Please spare me, there are too many flaws in that theory, especially where Harry’s concerned.”

“Heaven knows you knew him better than anyone else.… Very well, Drew, I’ll give the order and I won’t even bother Adam Bollinger over at State. He’s already given us carte blanche, although for all the wrong motives.”

“Motives? Not reasons?”

“Reasoning is secondary to Bollinger. Motives come first. Stay well, stay alive, and be terribly careful.”

In the embassy’s infirmary, actually a modern clinic of six rooms with state-of-the-art medical equipment, Gerhardt Kroeger was strapped to the table. A single transparent tube combining the flows from two plastic pouches above his head was inserted into his left arm, the needle penetrating the antecubital vein. He had been tranquilized prior to the procedure, a passive patient who had no idea what was in store for him.

“If he dies,” said the embassy doctor, his eyes on the electrocardiogram screen, “you pricks take the fall. I’m here to save lives, not execute them.”

“Tell that to the families of the men he shot to death without knowing who they were,” replied Drew.

Stanley Witkowski elbowed Latham aside. “Let me know when he’s reaching comatose,” he ordered the physician.

Drew stepped back, standing beside Karin as they all watched, both fascinated and repulsed by what was taking place.

“He’s entering the mode of least resistance,” said the doctor. “
Now
,” he added severely. “And orders or no orders, I’m shutting the IV off in two minutes!
Christ
, a minute after that, and he’s dead!… I don’t need this job, fellas. I can pay off the government for medical
school in three or four years, but I can’t erase this for all the bread in the Treasury Department.”