The Apocalypse Watch (87 page)

“They bought
French
, not American?” said Gerald Anthony.

“Many do, Lieutenant. Our aircraft industry is superb. Our Mirages are considered to be among the finest fighter planes in the world. Also, one saves millions of francs by having them flown from Beauvais instead of, say, Seattle, Washington.”

“I’ll grant you that, Major.”

And so it went for the rest of the morning, every photograph scrutinized with magnifiers, a hundred questions asked and answered. Everything led to nowhere.

“What
is
it?” exclaimed Latham. “What is it they’ve got that we don’t
see
?”

In the restricted cavernous hall in the bowels of British intelligence, the most experienced analysts and cryptographers of MI-5, MI-6, and Her Majesty’s Secret Service pored over the cartons of material from Günter Jäger’s house on the Rhine. Suddenly there was a firm, controlled voice that rose above the hum of nearby machines.

“I’ve
got
something,” said a woman in front of one of the endless computers around the huge room. “I’m not sure what it means, but it was buried in the deep code.”

“Explain, please.” The MI-6 director in charge rushed to her station, the silent Witkowski at his side.

“ ‘Daedalus will fly, nothing can stop him.’ Those are the decoded words.”

“What the devil do they mean?”

“Something about the sky, sir. In Greek mythology, Daedalus escaped from Crete with feathered wings attached to his arms by wax, but his son, Icarus, flew too high and the sun melted
his
wax. He fell to his death into the sea.”

“What in blazes has that got to do with Water Lightning?”

“Frankly, I don’t know, sir, but there are three gradations of codes, A, B, and C, C being the most complex.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that, Mrs. Graham.”

“Well, this was in the C classification, which is equivalent to our top secret, which means it’s the most restricted of the ciphers. Others in the neo movement might intercept it, but it’s doubtful they could break it. The message was meant for very few eyes.”

“Any idea where it came from?” asked the American colonel. “Is there a date, a time?”

“Fortunately, to both questions, yes. It was a fax from here, from London, and the time was forty-two hours ago.”

“Well done! Can you trace it?”

“I have. It’s one of yours, sir. MI-Six, Euro-Division, German section.”

“
Shit!
Sorry, old girl. There are over sixty officers in that section—just a moment! Each has to enter a two-digit marker, the machine won’t transmit without it. It has to
be
there!”

“It is, sir. It’s Officer Meyer Gold, chief of the section.”

“
Meyer?
That’s impossible! He’s a Jew, to begin with, and lost both sets of grandparents in the camps. He requested the German section for just that reason.”

“Perhaps he’s not actually Jewish, sir.”

“Then why did we all attend his son’s bar mitzvah last year?”

“Then the only other explanation is that someone else used his marker.”

“The manual makes clear that each individual keeps his marker to himself.”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you any further,” said the clear-eyed,
gray-haired Mrs. Graham, returning to her stack of materials.

“I may—or I may not,” said another analyst several stations away, a black West Indian officer, a Rhodes scholar from the Bahamas.

“What is it, Vernal?” asked the MI-6 director, walking quickly to the Bahamian’s table.

“Another Code C entry. The name Daedalus appears, only with no marker, no London, and it was sent thirty-seven hours ago from Washington.”

“What’s the communication?”

“ ‘Daedalus in position, countdown begun.’ And then it ends, and I’ll say it in German. ‘
Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer Jäger
.’ How about that?”

“Did you trace the fax?” asked Witkowski.

“Naturally. The American State Department, the office of Jacob Weinstein, undersecretary for Middle Eastern affairs. He’s a highly regarded negotiator.”

“Good God, they’re using well-respected Jewish personnel for their covers.”

“That shouldn’t surprise us,” said the Bahamian. “The only thing that could top it would be to use us blacks.”

“You’ve got a point,” agreed the American. “But color doesn’t come over a fax.”

“Names do, sir, and the fact that Daedalus appears twice in two top-secret ciphers nine hours apart has to mean something.”

“They’ve already told us. The countdown’s begun and they’re too damned confident of its success to suit my skin.” The MI-6 officer walked to the center of the large room and clapped his hands. “Listen up, everyone!” he cried. “Listen up, if you please.” The room went silent except for the soft humming of the computers. “We seem to have found a significant piece of information related to this bloody Water Lightning. It’s the name Daedalus. Have any of you run across it?”

“Yes, rather,” replied a slender middle-aged man with a chin beard and wearing wire-rimmed glasses, quite professorial in appearance. “About an hour past. I considered it to be the code name for a Nazi agent or agents, Sonnenkinder,
no doubt, and saw no relevance to Water Lightning. You see, Daedalus was the builder of the great labyrinth of Crete, and as we all recognize,
labyrinthine
connotes circuitous thought, concealed avenues, that sort of thing—”

“Yes, yes, Dr. Upjohn,” interrupted the impatient MI-6 director, “but in this case it may refer to the mythological flight he took with his son.”

“Oh, Icarus? No, I doubt that. As the legend has it, Icarus was a headstrong moron. Sorry, old man, but my interpretation is far more academically valid. Where in heaven’s name does Water Lightning fit in? It simply doesn’t, don’t you see?”

“
Please
, Professor, just dig the damn thing out, will you?”

“Very well,” said the wounded academic, his voice resounding with superiority. “It’s here somewhere in the reject pile. It was a facsimile, I believe. Yes, here it is.”

“Read it, please. From the top, old fellow.”

“Its point of origin was Paris, and it was sent yesterday at 11:17
A.M
. The message is as follows. ‘Messieurs Daedalus in splendid condition, prepared to strike in the name of our glorious future!’ Obviously, either he or they are misguided zealots with functions to perform following this Water Lightning. Quite possibly assassins.”

“Or something else,” said the gray-haired Mrs. Graham.

“Such as, dear lady?” asked Professor Upjohn patronizingly.

“Oh, stop it, Hubert, you’re not in a Cambridge classroom now,” she snapped. “We’re all searching.”

“You obviously have an idea,” said Witkowski with sincerity. “What is it?”

“I don’t really know, I’m merely struck by the French plural. ‘Messieurs,’ not ‘monsieur’; not one but more than one. That’s the first time Water Lightning—if it
is
Water Lightning—has been described in such a way.”

“The French are inordinately precise,” offered Dr. Hubert Upjohn acidly. “They cheat so frequently, it’s in their nature.”

“Poppycock,” said Mrs. Graham, “we’ve both had our share of subterfuge. I submit to you the battles of Plassy, as well as Henry Two’s marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine.”

“May we please
stop
this all too-unenlightening colloquy,” said the MI-6 director, turning to an aide. “Gather up the materials, call Beauvais and Washington, and fax everything to them. Someone’s got to make sense out of this.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Quickly,” added the American colonel.

At the Dalecarlia reservoir in Georgetown, analysts from Central Intelligence, G-2, and the National Security Agency studied the faxes from London. A deputy director of the CIA threw up his hands.

“There’s
nothing
we’re not prepared for! I don’t give a damn if the attacks come from every point on the compass, we’ll blow them away. Like London and Paris, we’ve got the grounds covered, and our heat-seeking rockets will knock any missiles out of the air. What the hell’s left?”

“Then why are they so confident?” asked a lieutenant colonel from G-2.

“Because they’re fanatics,” answered a young intellectual from the National Security Agency. “They must believe what they’re instructed to believe, that’s drummed into them. It’s called the Nietzsche imperative.”

“It’s called
crap
!” said the brigadier general in charge of Dalecarlia. “Aren’t those bastards in the real world?”

“Not really,” replied the NSA analyst. “They have their own world, sir. Its parameters are those of total commitment, nothing else matters or can interfere.”

“You’re saying they’re fruitcakes!”

“They’re fruitcakes, General, but they’re not stupid fruitcakes. I agree with that Consular Operations officer in Beauvais. They think they’ve found a way, and I can’t dismiss the possibility that they have.”

Beauvais, France. Zero hour minus three
. It was exactly one-thirty
A.M
. Everyone’s eyes continuously darted to
wall clocks and watches, the tension growing as the minutes ticked by and four-thirty grew nearer.

“Let’s go back to the photographs, okay?” said Latham.

“We’ve been over them and
over
them,” replied Karin. “Every question we’ve asked has been answered, Drew. What else is there?”

“I don’t know, I just want to look again.”

“At what, monsieur?” asked the major.

“Well … those silos, for example. You said the local police had investigated them. Were they qualified? Silos can be packed with feed or hay and there can be something else entirely underneath.”

“They were told what to look for, and one of my officers accompanied them,” said the general. “The ground-level contents were studied.”

“The more I think about missiles, the more plausible they seem.”

“We are as prepared as we can be,” said the general’s son. “Mobile units with launchers for heat-seeking rockets surround the reservoir, I’ve told you that, monsieur.”

“Then let’s go back over the stuff from London. For
Christ’s
sake, what’s a Daedalus or Daedaluses?”

“I can explain it again, sir,” offered Lieutenant Anthony. “You see, according to the myth, Daedalus, who was both an artist and an architect, studied the birds on Crete, mostly sea gulls, I guess, and figured that if man could attach feathers to his arms, feathers being close to air in density, and in motion almost as light as air—”

“
Please
, Gerry, if I hear that one more time, I’m going to burn every Bulfinch I come across for the rest of my life!”

“We keep returning to
air
, don’t we?” said De Vries. “Missiles, rockets, Daedalus or Daedaluses.”

“Speaking of air,” the balding major interrupted with a touch of irritation, “no missile or rocket or plane can penetrate our airspace without being detected far in advance and getting shot down either by antiaircraft cannon fire or by our own missiles. And as we’ve all agreed, to carry out the objective of Water Lightning, there would have to be
several very large cargo aircraft or dozens of smaller ones, sweeping down from nearby fields to achieve the element of surprise.”

“Have you checked the airports in Paris?” pressed Latham.

“Why do you think all the airlines’ schedules are delayed?”

“I didn’t know they were.”

“They are, causing a great deal of anger among their passengers. It is the same at Heathrow and Gatwick in England, and Dulles and National in Washington. We can’t say why without risking riots and far worse, but every aircraft is being inspected before it’s given clearance to enter a runway.”

“I didn’t realize that. Sorry. But then why are the neos so goddamned sure they’ve figured it
out
?”

“That is beyond me, monsieur.”

London. Zero hour minus two and eight minutes
. It was 1:22
A.M
., Greenwich Mean Time, and the MI-6 director in Vauxhall Cross was on the phone to Washington. “Any developments over there?”

“Not a wrinkle,” answered an angry American voice. “I’m beginning to think this whole frigging exercise is a pile of shit! Somebody’s laughing his ass off in Germantown.”

“I’m inclined to agree, old man, but you saw that tape and the materials we sent you. I’d say they were pretty convincing.”

“I’d say they’re a bunch of paranoid freaks, playing out some kind of
Götterdämmerung
that guy Wagner wouldn’t touch, or is it
Vagner
?”

“We’ll know soon enough, Yank. Keep steady.”

“I’ll try to keep from falling asleep.”

Washington D.C. Zero hour minus forty-two minutes
. It was 9:48
P.M
., the July sky overcast, the rain imminent, and the brigadier general in charge of the Dalecarlia reservoir was pacing back and forth across the floor of the waterworks office. “London doesn’t know anything, Paris
is a bust, and we’re sitting on our duffs, wondering whether we’ve been conned! This is one fucking
joke
that’s costing the taxpayers millions, and we’ll be blamed for it!
God
, I hate this job. If it’s not too late, I’ll go back to school and become a dentist!”

Zero hour minus twelve minutes
. It was 4:18 in Paris, 3:18 in London, 10:18 in Washington, D.C. Miles away from the reservoirs of the three cities, and synchronized down to minutes, six powerful jets went airborne, instantly sweeping away from their targets.

“
Activités inconnues!
” said the radar specialist in Beauvais.

“
Unidentified aircraft!
” said the specialist in London.

“
Two blips, unknown!
” said the specialist in Washington. “Not in sync with Dulles or National communications.”

Then, although separated by small and large distances, each spoke seconds later.

“
Superflu
,” corrected Paris.

“
False alarm
,” corrected London.

“
Forget it
,” corrected Washington. “They’re headed the other way. Probably rich kids with their private jets who forget flight plans. Hope they’re sober.”