Echo of War (12 page)

There were none.

Scanlon led them inland on a winding, overgrown trail, his flashlight beam pointed at his feet. As he had with the green chemlight, McBride kept his eyes fixed on the floating red circle as it skimmed over the ground.

After a few minutes, Scanlon halted then dropped to his belly, waited for the others to do the same, then started crawling. The rocks bit into McBride's forearms. A mosquito buzzed into his nose. On impulse he snorted it out, then mouthed “sorry” at Scanlon's backward glance.

Joe saw the trees thinning, and through them a faint pinprick of light. Scanlon crawled left off the trail and they followed. After another ten yards they came to a small clearing of foliage, a natural cave in the underbrush. Scanlon's communication man sat in the center, his face pressed to a rubber hood attached to a monitor the size of a paperback book. McBride could see faint blue light seeping from around the hood's edges.

Scanlon gathered them in a tight circle. “The shack's about twenty yards out,” he said, pointing. “I've got one of my snipers trying to get a peek in the window.”

“What's he looking at?” Nester asked, nodding toward the comm-tech.

“Something new we're trying out. Our night vision scopes are tied to the monitors.”

“Bluetooth?” Oliver asked.

“Yep, working out pretty good, too.”

McBride had read about Bluetooth in
Popular Mechanics
a few months earlier. Though still in its infancy and far ahead of the hardware it was intended to support, Bluetooth was the generic name for truly wireless networking. Running on a personal area network—or piconet—of coordinated radio signals that change frequency up to sixteen hundred times per second, Bluetooth was able to link devices that had once been incompatible: cell phones to computers; computers to printers; sniper scopes to monitors.

Instead of having to string cable and worry about maintaining line-of-sight infrared connections between his lookouts, Scanlon could place them exactly where he needed them and let Bluetooth worry about synchronizing communications. With a single monitor he could see exactly what his snipers had in their crosshairs. Moreover, he could transmit to his snipers images from fiberscope cameras planted around the scene, giving them a multiple-angled view of the target.

Scanlon pressed a palm against his headset, listened for a few moments, then whispered, “Roger, stand by.” Then to the others: “He's in place and transmitting.”

McBride watched the comm-tech. The man cupped his hands around the monitor hood, then turned and nodded to Scanlon, who took the monitor. After ten seconds Scanlon pulled his face away; his eyes shone in the blue glow. “Two subjects,” he whispered. “One looks like our boy. The other is … well … Joe, why don't you take a look? Maybe you'll know better.”

McBride wriggled forward and pressed his face to the hood. The rubber was warm and slick with sweat. It took his eyes several seconds to adjust to the display. What McBride had thought was blue light was actually the washed-out green of the sniper's night-vision scope. The image swam into focus. Every few seconds, it pulsed slightly—the sniper's heartbeat, Joe realized.

Through the shack's window he could see the torso and head of a man sitting against the far wall, his arms wrapped around his knees. It was Hekuran Selmani. A semiautomatic pistol dangled from his right hand. Beside him was a red-and-white cooler, in the corner a five-gallon plastic pail.
Food,
water,
and latrine,
McBride guessed.

A few feet away was another figure—a woman, Joe assumed, seeing the lace hem of her nightgown. She lay on her side, a black hood covering her head. She stirred slightly and the nightgown shifted, displaying her calf.

“Can you have your guy zoom in?” McBride whispered to Scanlon. “Right ankle.”

“Stand by.”

A few seconds passed as Scanlon relayed the message, then the picture shimmered slightly before refocusing on the woman's lower leg. McBride squinted, looking …
There.
A crescent moon-shaped scar on the knob of her ankle. He was about to pull his face away when his eye caught something else.

“Scan up to her neck,” he ordered.

The sniper made the adjustment and the picture skimmed up her body. McBride studied it for a few seconds more, then pulled his face off the hood. He blinked his eyes clear.

“It's her,” he whispered. “The first night I asked Mr. Root for distinguishing marks. Three years ago she twisted her ankle in the garden and tore a tendon; they had to do surgery. This woman's got the right scar.”

Oliver and Scanlon exchanged relieved glances. “Thank God,” Oliver said.

“Not so quick,” McBride replied. “There's a wire around her neck.”

“What?” Oliver said. “Like a garrote?”

“Like an electrical wire. I couldn't see all of it, but it leads over toward Selmani.”

“Goddammit,” Scanlon said.

“I don't get it,” said Nester. “What's going on?”

McBride said, “He's got her wired up to something. And whatever it is, I'm willing to bet there's a button attached to it.”

Plancoet, France

Tanner knew staying in one place for long was a risk, but he judged it safer than traveling during the day, so he and Cahil lounged about their room at the Mainotel and waited for nightfall.

Using a butterfly bandage, Bear had managed to close the cut on Tanner's cheekbone, but the bruise and swelling had nearly closed his eye. If the police were looking for someone with a similar injury, only darkness could give him adequate disguise.

Though the unanswered questions about Susanna's involvement with Litzman weighed on Tanner's mind, there were more immediate issues to consider—namely, the murder of Jim Gunston. Though an assumption on his part, he had little doubt Litzman's men from the Black Boar were responsible. The question was, How? How did they know where to find Gunston? Incapacitated at the Black Boar, they couldn't have followed them to the Hotel du Louvre. They must have already been aware of Gunston's presence in St. Malo. If so, did they also know who and what he was? Again, how?

There were two possible answers, neither of which he found comforting: Either the magenta-haired teenager from the TGV—if in fact she was anything more than a drifting panhandler—had followed Gunston, or Susanna had burned her own controller. Of these two, Tanner desperately wanted to believe it was the former, but that still wouldn't explain how Litzman had been tipped to Gunston in the first place. No, the original tip had to have come from Susanna. Had she in fact gone native? Through either choice or a break with reality, had she allied herself with Litzman? Or was it coercion? Imagining Susanna as Litzman's puppet left a dull ache in Tanner's chest. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to shut off his imagination.
Stay focused,
Briggs,
he commanded himself.

Back to the teenager at the TGV station: If she'd been a tail for Litzman, it was best to assume the German now knew the make, model, and license of their rental car. With the right connections he could easily track them.

Tanner kept one eye on the sun as it dropped toward the horizon, the other on the door, half-expecting it to come crashing in at any moment.

At nine o'clock they left the hotel and headed southeast, exiting and rejoining the highway to check for tails until they reached the town of St. Meen le Grand, where they traded their Renault for the only car the office had available, a three-cylinder, 60 horsepower Peugeot.

“I feel like a clown in a circus car,” Cahil muttered, hunched over. “My legs are falling asleep.”

“Let's hope we don't run into many hills,” Tanner agreed.

“Wanna flip a coin to see who gets out to push?”

They toured the town's narrow streets for thirty minutes and then, confident they were alone, rejoined the highway to Lorient.

They were in the heart of the Morbihan region of Brittany now—Bretagne to the locals—France's borderlands between the inland and the rugged coastline along the Bay of Biscay. Covered with green fields, apple orchards, and forests of beech and oak, Morbihan's interior was broken by rolling hills, sunken rivers, and ancient stone walls separating checkerboard farmland.

Seven kilometers northeast of Saint Servant, Cahil was perusing the map when Tanner cast a glance in the rear-view mirror and saw a pair of headlights rounding the bend behind them. It was the first vehicle they'd seen since leaving St. Meen le Grand.

“We've got a fellow traveler,” Tanner said.

Cahil glanced back. “He's moving fast.”

As Tanner watched, the pinpricks grew until the car was only a hundred yards off their bumper. The headlights were widely spaced, and between them Briggs caught a glimpse of heavy chrome and a three-pointed star.
Mercedes,
he thought.
Big engine.

The Mercedes hung back for a minute, then began accelerating again, until it was within arm's reach of their bumper. The headlights blazed through the rear window. Tanner squinted against it. He stuck his arm out the window and waved them to pass. The Mercedes clung to their bumper, matching the Peugeot's speed.

“What do you think?” Cahil said. “Just a little road rage, perhaps?”

As if in response, the Mercedes's headlights flipped to high, casting the Peugeot's interior in white light. “Doesn't look like it,” Tanner replied. He began slewing the Peugeot from side to side. Left unchecked, he knew the Mercedes would have no trouble overtaking them and forcing them off the road. “Where are we?” he called. “Anything on the map?”

Cahil peered at the map. “No, I don't—”

The Mercedes accelerated and crashed their bumper. The Peugeot lurched forward. Tanner felt the back end slipping sideways, the tires stuttering over the gravel. He spun the wheel to compensate and the Peugeot righted itself.

“He's trying to pit us,” Briggs called, referring to what the police called a precision immobilization technique. If the Mercedes's driver could jam the corner of his front bumper into either of the Peugeot's rear quarter panels, the little car would lose traction and spin out of control. “What about the map?”

“No, there's noth—Wait a second…” Cahil peered out Tanner's window, shading his eyes against the glare, then glanced back down at the map again. “Yeah, that's it! Right turn!”

“Now?”

“Now!”

Tanner slammed on the brakes. The Mercedes's headlights loomed in the rearview mirror. Just before their bumpers touched, Tanner downshifted, punched the accelerator, cranked the wheel over, then tapped the brake, sending the Peugeot into a skidding turn. The steering wheel shuddered in his hands. The glovebox popped open and papers began fluttering around the car's interior. From the corner of his eye Briggs saw a crack appear in the corner of the windshield.

“I'd say we've found her stress limits,” he called.

“Well, hell, it's a clown car, not a tank!”

The Peugeot's headlights washed over a grass-covered tract. Two hundred yards beyond that Tanner saw a man-made structure of some kind and got the fleeting impression of a crenellated wall. He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the Mercedes flash past the turn-in. Its brake lights flashed on and it skidded to a stop in a cloud of dust.

Wheels pounding over the ruts, the Peugeot rocked from side to side. Tanner's head bumped against the roof; he tasted blood. Through the windshield he caught a glimpse of a white sign with red lettering. The Peugeot's lights picked out a concrete wall, ten feet wide, twenty tall, and topped with grass and brush. Flanking the wall were a pair of concrete towers, each three stories tall. Sitting atop each was a small dome with horizontal slits. Fifty yards to his right Tanner could see the vague outline of another tower, and another beyond that.

The wall rose before the windshield. Tanner slammed on the brakes. The Peugeot slewed sideways and came to a stop before the wall. In the side mirror he saw the Mercedes backing down the main road, its powerful engine whining. It stopped, made a Y-turn, then started down the tract.

“Time to run!” Cahil called. He jumped from the car and began sprinting toward one of the towers. Tanner grabbed the backpack into which they'd stuffed all their gear, then followed. At the base of one of the towers they found a pair of eight-foot steel doors. The latch was secured by padlock and chain. Tanner looked around, pointed. “Hammer.”

Cahil ran over, hefted the concrete block, then raised it above his head and let it crash down on the chain. The padlock held firm. Behind them came the skidding of tires. Headlights pinned them. Cahil lifted the block again, raised it, let it drop. The chain clattered to the ground. They put their shoulders to the doors and pushed.

Behind came the sound of car doors opening, then a shout:
“Halt
!”

If Tanner had had any doubts about the identity of their pursuers, they were now gone. Litzman's cronies from the Black Boar hadn't given up.

Cahil grunted. “Let's hope they don't have—”

From the Mercedes came three overlapping cracks. Dust and concrete shards rained down on them. “Guns?” Tanner finished.

“Yeah, that. One more time!”

In unison, they gave one final heave. The doors gave a screeching groan, then shuddered open a foot. Through the gap Tanner saw blackness. “Go,” he ordered.

Cahil began squeezing through. Tanner glanced over his shoulder, saw six figures sprinting across the uneven ground. Cahil wriggled through the gap, then grabbed Tanner's arm and began pulling. Briggs shoved his head and shoulders inside, then exhaled all the air from his lungs, coiled his legs, and pushed off. Together they tumbled into the darkness.

They fell together in a heap, then scrambled on hands and knees back to the doors, and jammed their shoulders against the steel. As the doors swung shut, Tanner saw figures rushing toward them. A trio of muzzles flashed. Bullets thunked into the doors, sounding like hammer strikes on the steel.

“Push!” Tanner yelled.

The doors slid shut with a reverberating gong. They were engulfed in blackness. The doors began bucking as boots and fists pounded from the outside.

“The duffel,” Cahil whispered. “There's a penlight.”

Tanner felt around in the darkness, hand groping over the rough concrete until it found the duffel. He pulled it to him, opened the side pocket, fished around for a moment, then came out with the flashlight. He clicked it on. A small pool of light enveloped them.

From outside, voices:
“Helfen Sie mir
!”
Help me!

Tanner shined the light about. Above their heads the doors were fitted with steel L-brackets; to the right, mounted on a hinge in the jam, was a cross brace. It was held in place by a loop of wire.

“Can you hold?” Tanner asked Cahil.

Bear grunted. “Not for long.”

“Five seconds.”

With his back pressed to the door, Tanner slid upward, dug in his pocket for his folding knife, then opened the blade. He slipped the blade beneath the wire and began sawing.

The doors bucked inward a few inches. Cahil slammed them shut.

With a twang, the wire split. Tanner pulled the cross brace down into the brackets. “Okay, let it go.”

Cahil did so. The doors bucked again, but the brace held. The pounding and shouting continued for twenty seconds, then stopped. Briggs could hear murmuring from the other side.

“Looking for another way in,” he whispered.

Cahil nodded. “If we found one, they will.”

Tanner shined the flashlight around. “What is this place?”

“The
Ligne de Fant
ô
me,
”
Cahil replied. In the relative quiet, their voices echoed off the walls. “The Ghost Line.”

The Ghost Line,
Tanner thought, trying to recall where he'd heard the phrase before. “Another tidbit from Fodor's?” he asked.

“Baedeker's.”

Then Tanner remembered: The
Ligne de Fant
ô
me
was the nickname for the Quily portion of the Maginot Line—or at least that had been the original intention when France and Great Britain had begun its construction prior to World War Two.

In 1929, with memories of the First World War fresh in its collective mind, the French government began building an underground line of interlinked bunkers, gun emplacements, and fortresses, or
ouvrages,
along its eastern frontier, where they were certain another German invasion would eventually come. Each
ouvrage
consisted of gun cupolas, artillery turrets, underground power plants, barracks, and rail lines for transporting troops and munitions to adjoining forts.

The main Maginot Line, which stretched from Switzerland to the Ardennes in the north and from the Alps to the Mediterranean in the south, was to be France's answer to Germany's advantage in manpower and equipment.

However, in the spring of 1940 the Maginot Line was rendered obsolete as Hitler's blitzkrieg went over, around, and on occasion through the line, battering France into submission in a matter of months.

The little known Ghost Line, a joint venture between France and Great Britain, had been envisioned as not only a fallback position for the French Army, but also as an unassailable beachhead for British reinforcement troops crossing the channel. With the collapse of France, construction of the Quily Line ceased, and for the past sixty-three years the three-kilometer-long redoubt had sat deserted in the middle of the French countryside.

“According to the article,” Cahil whispered, “it never saw any action.”

“Until now,” Tanner replied. “I don't suppose the guide had any ‘you are here' maps.”

“ 'Fraid not.”

On either side of the doors a steel ladder ascended the side of one of the towers—which Tanner now recognized as 75mm gun cupolas—and ended at the opening to the dome itself. At the base of each ladder was a hatch which Tanner assumed was a munitions elevator. Down the tunnel to their right, they would find the next cupola and another set of doors. To their left lay the entrance to a catwalk ladder shaft.

The floor was littered with piles of shoring timbers, cement blocks, and the occasional hand tool, as though the workers had dropped what they were doing and run—which, given the speed of the German invasion, may have been exactly what happened. Somewhere in the distance came the sound of water dripping.

“What's the plan?” Cahil asked.

“Find a way out, steal their car, and run,” Tanner replied.

“Just like that?”

“I'm an optimist.”

In truth, Tanner wasn't hopeful about grabbing the Mercedes. Nor did the idea of taking on six armed
Spetsnaz
soldiers appeal to him. Their best chance was to elude the Germans, find an exit, and slip undetected into the French countryside while their pursuers scoured the complex for them.

“Do you remember how many levels in the complex?” Tanner asked.

Cahil thought for a moment. “Six—eighty feet from ground level to the bottom. Munitions magazines on the lowermost level, then the power plant and sewer system, then barracks and supplies on the ones above. What're you thinking?”

“Go all the way to the bottom and start running. We get ahead of them, then climb back up and find another exit. It's three kilometers to the end; multiply that by six levels and they've got a lot of ground to cover.”

Bear made a flourish toward the stairwell. “After you.”

They jogged to the ladder and started down. As Tanner's foot touched the third step, he felt a tremor run through the steel. He froze. With a wrenching sound, the catwalk began swaying. After a few moments it stopped. Slowly, gingerly, Tanner lifted his flashlight and played it over the walls.

Steel bolts connected the ladder to the wall. Without exception, the head of each was a misshapen lump of rust. Tanner touched one with his fingertip. It trembled, then slipped halfway from its hole, exposing rusted threads. The catwalk shuddered.

“Please don't do that again,” Cahil muttered.

“Sorry.”

“What's your preference?” Cahil asked. “Fast or slow?”

From above, they heard a crash and a reverberating gong. “They found your cinder block,” Briggs said. “I vote for fast.”

“Me, too.”

Tanner took a deep breath, shined the flashlight ahead of him, then began running. He took the steps two at a time, one hand on the rail for support. With each footfall the ladder trembled and groaned. Briggs felt a momentary wave of dizziness, but shook it off and kept going. At his back, he could hear Cahil panting out a mantra: “Hold together, baby, hold together…”

As they passed the fourth level, Tanner cast a glance upward and immediately regretted it. The upper catwalks were swaying from side to side, banging into the walls. Concrete dust drifted down like fine snow. Bolts and chunks of railing bounced down the ladder, clanging as they fell.

Tanner saw the bottom of the stairs come into view. He called “Jump,” then leapt off the top step. He hit the concrete floor, curled into a ball, and let himself roll to a stop. A few feet away, Cahil was rising to his knees.

“Okay?” Tanner asked.

“Yep.”

Up the ladder shaft, voices called out:
“Wo sind sie
?
…
Welcher Weg
?”

A circle of light appeared at the top of the shaft. Tanner could just make out the dim outline of a face peering down at them.
“Hier
!”
a voice called.

Tanner clicked off his flashlight. He and Cahil backed into the shadows. “We've got to move,” he whispered. “They'll try to cut us off.”

“Ready when you are.”

Footsteps pounded on the catwalk, which gave out a groan. The footsteps stopped. A panicked German voice called,
“Ach,
Gott
!”

Tanner and Cahil crept down the tunnel a few feet. Tanner clicked on his flashlight and played it ahead, looking for obstacles. There were none. He clicked off the light. “When we get past the next shaft, I'll check again,” he whispered.

Cahil nodded. “Pray the rest of the ladders are bad.”

“I
am.”

They waited for twenty seconds for their eyes to adjust, then took off running.

They made it past eight ladder shafts—about a quarter mile—before being spotted. A powerful beam of light suddenly pierced the shaft ahead, creating a pool on the floor. Tanner saw it too late, tried to veer into the darkness, but wasn't fast enough. Cahil stumbled around him and dove into the shadows along the opposite wall.

Rifle cracks echoed down the shaft; bullets sparked on the concrete. Above came the click of footsteps on the ladder. The pool of the light jiggled as the owner tried to keep it focused on the floor.

New plan,
Tanner thought. They weren't going to be able to outrun Litzman's men. Not only were the topside tunnels wider, but the Germans had better flashlights and no reason not to use them. He and Bear had at least two kilometers to go before they reached the end. Sooner or later they would stumble into an ambush.

He gestured to Cahil his idea. Bear nodded then trotted down the tunnel and ducked behind a pile of timbers. Tanner sidestepped the pool of light and ducked around the corner. He dropped into a crouch. He listened, trying to gauge the German's descent. When he estimated the German was near the bottom, he yelled, “Run, Bear, go!”

From the ladder there was a moment of silence, then
“Scheisse
!”
Shit! Footsteps began pounding. Tanner peeked around the corner just in time to see the German leap the last few steps to the floor. The man spun, his flashlight dancing off the walls. He carried a 9mm H&K MP-5.

Tanner pulled his head back, held his breath.
Come on,
Bear.

Down the tunnel there came the scuff of shoes on concrete, then a crash and a moan of pain from Cahil.

The German took off in pursuit. As he passed, Tanner stepped out and palm-punched him. Stunned, the German stumbled sideways, dropping the flashlight. Tanner rushed forward and heel-kicked the man's wrist, spinning him away. The MP-5 clattered to the ground. Tanner stepped forward, wrapped his forearm around the man's throat—thumb knuckle pressed into the hollow beneath the ear—and levered his other forearm against the back of his head, compressing the carotid artery. The German struggled for several seconds, then slowly went slack. Tanner lowered him to the floor, then grabbed the flashlight and clicked it off.

Cahil trotted up and collected the MP-5. “Next time you play the hare,” he whispered.

From the shaft a voice shouted, “Johann!”

Tanner muffled part of his mouth with his hand, then called,
“Sie laufen
!”
They're on the run!

He gestured to Cahil, who fired a short burst down the tunnel.

“
Werden Sie voraus von ihnen
!”
Tanner shouted. Get ahead of them!

They waited until the footsteps retreated up the ladder, then dragged the German's body into the shadows. “Time to backtrack,” Tanner said.

They were turning to leave when Tanner stopped and returned to the body. He quickly searched the man, but found nothing but a cell phone. He turned it on, called up the address book, and scrolled through the entries. When he found the number he was looking for, he set it to memory, then dialed “0,” listened for ten seconds, and replaced the phone.

Cahil looked at him questioningly.

Tanner said, “Tell you later.”

They retraced their course, pausing at each shaft before continuing. When they reached the shaft they'd started from, Tanner felt his heart rise into his throat. The ladder was all but collapsed, twisted to one side and swaying like a child's defunct mobile.

“How're your shimmying skills?” Cahil asked.

“What?” Tanner turned. Bear wasn't looking at the ladder, but at the far wall and the hatch to the munitions elevator. “Maybe,” Tanner said. “It's going to depend on the cable.”

They slid open the hatch, revealing a box three feet deep, three feet tall, and two feet wide. Tanner craned his neck so he could peer through the gap between the box and the wall. They were in luck. The box was supported not by a steel cable, but by a rope. It was as big around as a man's wrist and appeared intact. Cahil reached in and gave it a tug. “Seems solid.”

“Not that we have a choice,” Tanner replied. It wouldn't take long for their pursuers to begin backtracking. “I'll go first. If it breaks, you can catch me.”

“Uh-huh.”

They pulled the box down until Tanner could squeeze through onto its roof. He clicked on his flashlight, clamped it between his teeth, then grabbed the rope and began climbing.

Protected by the enclosed shaft, the rope had weathered the decades in surprisingly good condition. They took turns climbing, one of them braced in the shaft as the other shimmied upward, alternating until the uppermost hatch came into view.

Feet and back pressed against the walls, Tanner slid open the hatch. Below him, Cahil inched upward until he was braced in position. “Go ahead.” Tanner placed his feet on Cahil's shoulders, clicked off his flashlight, then stuck his head through the hatch and looked around. The tunnel was deserted. He closed his eyes to listen. Silence.

Tanner boosted himself through the hatch, rolled onto the floor, then helped Cahil out.

Down the tunnel they saw a glimmer of light. It panned left, then right, then winked out. Faint German voices called to one another. With Cahil following, Tanner crept down the tunnel to the second set of doors, which lay open.