The Children's War (192 page)

As he was still perusing the titles, Erich returned. Peter waited until his brother was in the door and Gretchen had explained that a colleague had come to visit before he turned around. The smile of greeting slid from Erich’s face and he stammered, “What are you doing here?” with something less than an acceptable level of courtesy.

“Erich!” his wife admonished.

“Unless you’re into confiding everything to your family,” Peter said in English to his brother, “you’ll be clever enough to greet me as a colleague.” He grinned a welcome.

Erich’s face was absolutely white with fear. He glanced from his wife to his
children and back again before mustering the wherewithal to say, in English, “What do you want from me?”

“Lots.”

“Erich?” Gretchen asked, suddenly worried. “What’s going on?”

“Ah, dear Frau Schwarz. Forgive me for playing a small joke on your husband!” Peter assured her. “We share a common childhood language and I like to tease my shy colleague into using it now and again. Do forgive me for being so terribly rude!” Peter leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “I’m going to steal your husband for the evening. It’s terribly important government business, you understand, and we appreciate your patriotism and loyalty, and I hope we don’t inconvenience you too much with this unexpected requisition of his time. Please don’t wait up, he’ll be back quite late.”

Gretchen was still touching her cheek where Peter had kissed it even as he grabbed his brother’s arm and gently led him out the door.

65

“W
E COULD BE HANGED FOR THIS,”
Erich reminded his brother yet again as they lay on the ground near the chain-link fence that surrounded the perimeter of the laboratory.

“If we’re lucky,” Peter agreed jovially. “Of course, since you’re with me, they might prefer to torture you first.” He looked up from cutting the lower links and grinned at his brother. “It’d be a great chance for you to learn about the government you serve.”

Erich scowled. “Can’t you do this without me? I’ll wait outside and you can bring me the stuff. I’ll stay here. I promise.”

“Would you shut up already!” Mark growled, glancing around nervously.

Erich looked at Mark’s angry face and then at Barbara as she sat nearly invisible-in the darkness only a few feet away, casually holding her gun as if to suggest she would just as readily shoot him dead as not. He fell silent and listened to his heart thumping, trying not to think about the freezing dampness that was penetrating his clothes. “It’s just that I have a wife and four children,” he could not stop himself from saying.

“Gag him,” Peter ordered. He was listening intently for the approach of any security patrols, and Erich’s whining was an annoying distraction. Peter was also concentrating on not cutting the trip wire woven cleverly into the links of the fence. It was a fairly simple system, but still more than he had expected to encounter at the outer fence. As he carefully felt along each link to determine if there were any more alarm wires, he wondered at the sort of security they would face at the inner fence. Here they were relatively well shielded and could take
their time, but inside, they would be exposed between the two fences and would have to move quickly. No dogs, no mines, nothing elaborate, he had been told. It had accorded with what he had known about the place years ago: just a government laboratory with the obligatory, minimal security. Consequently, the trip wires worried him. Had the security been tightened? Had they been fed false information?

Mark moved toward Erich intent on carrying out the order to gag him. “Don’t, don’t! I’ll be quiet, I promise!” Erich pleaded in a whisper.

Peter motioned for Mark to stop. “Last chance,” Peter warned Erich. He had not expected cooperation from his brother and had not even tried to get it from him. Once they had left Erich’s flat, Peter had simply explained in no uncertain terms that Erich was going to help them or be turned in to the authorities. For what? Erich had demanded to know. Doesn’t matter, Peter had replied, just as it had not mattered for their father. That threat had been sufficient; Peter had not needed to explain how he could manufacture evidence or how he could let it be known that Erich’s brother was the notorious criminal who had earned the undying enmity of the Fatherland. No, it had been sufficient to allude to the Pure German movement—that had immediately won Erich’s obedience.

“There, done it,” Peter whispered. He lay flat on the ground and consulted his watch. When the time was right, he pulled apart the tear in the fence and motioned Barbara through. He motioned for Mark to stay put with his brother, then grabbing his bag, Peter hurried after Barbara. He joined her at the next fence and the two of them worked feverishly to inspect and cut the fence. Barbara swore quietly.

“Wires?” he asked, quite surprised.

“No. Lasers. Don’t you see them?” She gestured to just the other side of the chain links.

He squinted in the direction she had indicated. After blinking and straining for some seconds, he finally saw the faint traces of horizontal red lines. “Yeah, I see them. Okay, time to dig; let’s hope there’s nothing buried.” He pulled out a trowel. He glanced back at Mark and Erich and then at the height of the lowest laser beam and suggested, “Six inches down should do it.”

The fence was buried to a depth of nine inches, and Peter and Barbara decided to clear a narrow trench that far down. He finished cutting the links, then Barbara pulled herself through the trench between the pieces of cut fence and under the lasers. She paused on the other side, and they waited to see if there was any reaction to her breach. After a tense few seconds, he decided that she had not set off any alarms and, pushing his bag through, lowered himself to the ground and scrabbled through the ditch. Barbara helped by pulling him so that he did not have to raise himself, and once he was safely through, he motioned to Mark to bring Erich through.

The two of them scurried through the first opening and across the open patch between the fences. As they arrived at the second fence, Peter could see that
Mark had resorted to holding a gun on Erich. Mark ordered Erich to the ground, and Barbara and Peter grabbed his arms and pulled him through. Then they pulled Mark through, and taking only a second to survey their circumstances, they bolted for the relative safety of the laboratory. They circled around until they were at the window that let into Chandler’s section. The informant had agreed to disconnect the security wiring and unlock and open the window a few millimeters. Peter studied the three windows on that side: none of them looked open. He ran his fingers along the sills and determined that one was looser than the others—it was probably open though not visibly so to someone on the outside. He tried lifting the window using friction against the wood, but it was too stiff, so he and Barbara inserted screwdrivers on either side of the sill and together they managed to move it up an inch. Peter inserted his hands under the sill and pushed the window up the rest of the way with no resistance.

Barbara slipped inside, peered around, and then motioned the others in. Peter handed her his bag and went next, then he and Barbara pulled Erich in, and finally Mark tumbled in and quickly shut the window behind him. Barbara remained on watch by the windows as the others moved stealthily through the main laboratory area. Mark took up guard by the door, leaving Peter alone with his brother to carry out their inspection. Peter pulled Erich past the benches and over to the office area. Several desks were set up against the wall, but Peter ignored those, heading instead for the single desk that was enclosed behind glass partition walls. It was the only desk with a computer and obviously belonged to the section chief.

The door to the cubicle was locked. Peter glanced up at the height of the partitions and then, mumbling his disgruntlement, decided instead to pick the lock. His brother watched in silent fascination as Peter pulled out his elaborate lockpick and began work on the door.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Erich whispered as he glanced nervously first at Mark and then Barbara.

“I don’t know,” Peter admitted. “Information of some sort. The information was received via computer, so it’s either on that computer in there, or there is a printed copy of the information somewhere in that desk or in the lab.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down much,” Erich commented sarcastically.

“Either you or I will recognize it,” Peter assured him. He found the right key and soon they were inside the small, extremely untidy office. Peter flicked the switch to the computer and the screen slowly came to life.

Erich’s eyes widened as he watched the screen flash information at them in a confusing jumble of words and images. “Do you know what this machine is doing?” he asked, his voice conveying wonder at the technology before him.

Peter snorted his derision. “This is an old piece of junk,” he replied with a certain satisfaction. “Of course, I know what it’s doing! Don’t tell me you don’t even have this level of technology in your laboratory?”

Erich was shaking his head but he did not answer.

“Shit!” Peter swore suddenly.

“What?” Erich asked. “What’s wrong?”

“It wants a password,” Peter groaned. He bit his tongue to keep from swearing and typed in a few likely tries, none of which worked.

“What now?”

“I’m thinking,” Peter murmured, trying to recall what Zosia had said about passwords. He had not expected Chandler to have one, and so that implied that someone else had set up the security on Chandler’s computer. Now, how would Chandler have handled that? He stood and inspected the back of the machine and under the desk, looking for a printed reminder of what the password might be. He did not find anything so he sat down and tried a few more simple ideas. Then he noticed the photograph hiding behind a stack of papers. It was a picture of the scientist with his wife and three children. Peter picked it up and removed the photograph from its frame. On the back of the picture the names and birth dates of each member of the family were noted in what looked like a tidy, feminine hand. Peter tried each name and date in turn without success.

“Guess we should go,” Erich prodded.

“Shut up,” Peter snapped. There was still the desk and file drawers. A printed document was likely to be somewhere. Plus he could try some clever tricks to get inside the machine if that failed. There were the other desks, too. Shit, there were hundreds of things they could spend hours looking at! Get in, grab the information, and get out, he had hoped; now that looked impossible. He glanced around the office again. What a pigsty! The implied laziness of its occupant was inspired. It gave him an idea and he called up the password screen again and tried simply hitting the enter key—it was the laziest possible password available to someone who did not even want security on his computer. To his utter astonishment, the trick worked, and the computer hummed into life, pulling up the last bits of software and preparing itself for use.

“What’d you do? What’d you do?” Erich asked, convinced that he had missed some magic trick.

“Telepathy,” Peter answered sarcastically. “I thought the correct answer at it.”

The screen presented a single prompt and Peter typed a command asking the machine to list its files. It took several variations, but he finally hit upon the appropriate operating language, and the file names were listed for the two of them to scan. They stared at the screen for a few moments, then Peter pointed out a file name and said, “I bet it’s that one.”

“What makes you say that?” Erich asked, shaking his head in confusion at the screen.

“Well, dear brother, the date, the file type, and—lo!—the file name is in English.” Peter was hardly able to contain his laughter. He opened the file and read the first few lines; the text was in English as well. “I’ll print it up, then we can have an easier time looking at it.” He turned on the printer and typed in the appropriate command.

“How do you know how to do all this?” Erich asked. “I’ve never seen anything like this and I work in a government institute! You’re not . . . Where have you . . . ?” he sputtered almost angrily.

Peter rolled his eyes, then almost gently he explained, “It should not surprise you that the Reich is a technological backwater compared to America. After all, we have a habit here of killing our best and brightest, or at least driving them into exile. Nor should it surprise you that even when we steal the relevant new technology from America, we are unable to duplicate it en masse since we have an utterly demoralized workforce which tends to indulge in sabotage either deliberately or through drunken carelessness. So, when our dear leaders finally do manage to organize something as simple as a decent computer, do you really expect that the few good specimens available are going to be wasted on a treacherous colonial backwater like London? Do you?”

“Well, then how does this laboratory have them?” Erich replied defensively.

“It’s viewed as an adjunct to Berlin. Nearly everyone here comes from the old Reich and answers to their bosses there. Chandler is local talent, but he still answers to Berlin. Besides, this machine is definitely not state of the art. Believe me, if you want to see the good stuff, you have to go to Berlin.”

“That still doesn’t answer how you know all this!” Erich snapped angrily.

“No, it doesn’t.” Peter pulled the document out of the printer and began readingit, handing the pages to Erich as he finished each.

They read in silence, then Erich asked, “What does this word mean?”

Peter looked at the word. “Facilitate,” he replied. “You mean you didn’t know?”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve spoken this language,” Erich admitted sheepishly. “What about this word?”

“Inconspicuous.”

“And this one?”

“Potable. Look, I’ll peruse the document and when I have a question, I’ll just ask you, okay?” Peter suggested, completely exasperated.