SecondWorld (18 page)

“
Ja.
”

Miller began dialing a number on the phone.

“Who are you calling?”

“Someone I trust.”

After reaching the automated switchboard, Miller punched in the extension number. The line picked up a moment later. “You’ve reached the office of Executive Assistant Director Fred Murdock. Leave your name, number, and time and date of your call and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.” The message beeped. “Fred, it’s Lincoln. Sorry I haven’t been in touch yet. But something fell in my lap and it can’t be ignored. I need you to get me everything you can on a guy named Aldric Huber. Born in Germany. May be a naturalized U.S. citizen. If he’s still alive he’d be old. Eighties. Maybe nineties. Keep it under the radar. Do the search yourself and delete it when you’re done. Call me back at…” Miller quickly found the phone number under the Settings tab and read it into the phone.

When he hung up, Miller realized his instincts now controlled his actions. He was on the case. And that meant he’d follow this thing to the end, whatever that might be. Which meant he’d be breaking a promise.

He dialed 411 and got the name and number of the flower shop inside the George Washington University Hospital. After being connected he arranged to have a pack of chocolate puddings and a bouquet of flowers delivered to Arwen’s room. When asked about the note for the flowers, he said, “Arwen, I’m taking the ring to Mount Doom. Love, Frodo.”

The woman on the other end of the line got a laugh out of that, but Miller knew Arwen would understand the message. His quest had begun. He hung up the phone and turned to Adler, who waited with raised eyebrows.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Now,” Miller said, “I’m taking a shower.” He opened the Safari Web browser on the phone and handed it to her. “Find out what you can about the other names on the list. If anything stands out, make a note. After that, read and reread your grandmother’s journal. Flag anything that sounds like it doesn’t involve Project Lantern Bearer. If Fred calls, come get me.”

She looked surprised. “In the shower.”

Miller gave a sarcastic nod. “That’s where I’ll be.”

He stood and walked to the bathroom, wondering if it was even possible that a dead German scientist turned U.S. patriot and his assistant could help track down a modern Nazi cabal who’d shown they were fully capable of wiping out the human race. The truth was, he doubted it. He was grasping at straws. But the journal of a German mathematician had provided a few bread crumbs to follow.

Perhaps there would be a trail?

Of course, he didn’t expect to find more bread crumbs. Blood seemed more likely.

26

Miller left the bathroom thirty minutes later feeling clean for the first time in days. While he felt eager to hear back from Fred, he also felt thankful that he’d been given the time to just stand under the scalding water and decompress. The tension melted away from his back and the chaos in his mind eased.

When Adler looked up from her grandmother’s diary, she noticed the difference immediately. “You look … better.”

He sat down next to her. “I feel better.” He tugged at his ill-fitting shirt. “Though we’ll be picking up some clothes for me next time we get a chance. None of these are mine.” He looked at the journal. “Find anything useful?”

“Obergruppenführer Emil Mazuw was general of the Waffen-SS—the Schutzstaffel, Hitler’s elite—and one of eight Higher SS and police leaders. He was definitely involved in the development of secret weapons, but the Allies captured him at the end of the war. He served sixteen years for his part in the Holocaust, which included euthanizing Jews. After his release he got a job, lived off the radar, and died in 1987.”

“Sixteen
years
?” Miller said, his jaw slack.

“
Ja,
” she said. “They should have hung them all.”

Miller smiled. Part of him expected Adler to be defensive, but her voice held as much venom as his.

“Dr. Kurt Debus. This may not be any help because he died in 1983, but he was also brought to the U.S. by Operation Paperclip and became the first director of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.”

“Geez. Between him and von Braun, the U.S. space program was controlled by former Nazis.” The ridiculousness of this made Miller wonder if Nazi sympathizers had infiltrated the U.S. system before the war had even begun.

“Dr. Hermann Oberth was actually von Braun’s mentor and developed liquid-fueled rockets, including the V-2 rockets, for the Reich. He wasn’t part of Operation Paperclip, but lived in the U.S. for a time before returning to Germany. He died in 1989. The last name on the list, Dr. Walther Gerlach, was interned by the British at the end of the war and some believe he helped develop their nuclear program. But he returned to Germany in 1946 and worked as a professor until he died in 1979. Another dead end.”

“Literally,” Miller said. “Anything on Huber?”

“Nothing. He’s a ghost. If he exists, he avoided the history books.”

Miller gave the journal a pat and said, “Not all of them.” That’s when he noticed a passage in the journal had been circled in fresh red ink. “Found something?” Even though he couldn’t read it, Miller turned the journal around and looked at the text.

“I’m not sure. She mentions being asked to calculate the optimal temperatures for freezing and thawing bodies without damaging the cells. But she didn’t believe a mathematical equation could help refine such a process without more data. She’d been disturbed when she was told that trials were being conducted and data would be delivered. But she never mentions it again.”

“So she either didn’t get the data, or just didn’t bother to note it.”

Adler didn’t reply. Miller could see she was uncomfortable with the idea of her grandmother being involved with something as heinous as freezing and thawing living human beings. He knew that such experiments were conducted on the prisoners held in concentration camps, not to mention scores of other revolting experiments, but kept that to himself. He could see the weight of her grandmother’s involvement tugging at Adler’s shoulders. “You’re right. Doesn’t sound related.” He passed the journal back to her. “But keep at it. You might find something.”

The chime of the ringing phone made both of them jump. Miller accepted the call and placed the phone to his ear. “Miller.”

“Damn, it’s good to hear your voice, Linc,” Fred Murdock said on the other end.

“Thanks for visiting me in the hospital,” Miller teased.

“I didn’t know you were there until you were gone,” Murdock said. “Things are a little crazy right now.”

“I’m sure.”

“Where are you, anyway?”

“Better if you don’t know.”

“What, you think someone is going to torture me for the info?”

Murdock’s tone turned grim when Miller didn’t answer. “This is about that red shit, isn’t it? Listen, if this Huber guy is a lead, I want in.”

“That would be a bad idea, Fred.”

“You’re sure?”

“You’ve been out of the field for fifteen years and this isn’t
Lethal Weapon.
You actually are too old for this shit. Just please, keep this quiet. If I need your help, I’ll call. Until then, if even a mouse fart of this gets out, I’m going to feel some heat.”

“I hear you, Linc. Loose lips sink ships. I know the drill.”

“Thanks. What did you find on Huber?”

“Well…” Miller could hear papers rustling on the other end. “There wasn’t much. The guy’s led a quiet life. Came to the U.S. from Germany like you thought. Was only eighteen at the time, so he’s eighty-five now. Lived in Huntsville, Alabama, for a long time.”

“Huntsville? Isn’t that where—”

“Home to the Marshall Space Flight Center, yup.”

“Where is he now?” Miller asked, then snapped his fingers at Adler and pointed to a Best Western memo pad sitting on the room’s dresser. She quickly snatched the pad and handed it to him. Using Adler’s red pen, he wrote down the information as Murdock gave it to him.

“Last known place of residence is 23 Pinegrove Circle, Barrington, New Hampshire. I don’t have a date of death on the guy, so he must still be there.”

“Phone number?”

“None on record.”

“Good enough,” Miller said. “Thanks, Fred.”

“If you need anything else—more intel, a wiretap, the cavalry—you let me know. Just stay alive, okay?”

“That’s the plan.”

Miller hung up the phone.

“So we’re going to New Hampshire?” Adler asked as she read the memo pad.

Miller stood and picked up the car keys. “Yup.”

“What,
now
?”

“It’s at least an eight-hour drive. If we leave now we can be there in time to talk to Huber over donuts and coffee.”

“You don’t need to rest?”

Just hearing the question made Miller feel exhausted. He’d been pushing his body hard. But he’d been trained to deal with it. And if Adler wanted to be a part of this, she would have to do the same. “We’ll drive in two four-hour shifts. I’ll take the first.”

With a tired sigh, Adler heaved herself out of the chair, put her scattered belongings back in her purse, and headed for the door with Miller. They were northbound on Route 95 five minutes later. Miller drove in silence as Adler slept. He felt the tug of sleep on his body, but his mind, firing on all cylinders, remained hypervigilant for danger. He half expected a bullet to zing through the window, or a storm of red flakes to descend. Danger felt inescapable—far worse than his combat experiences in the SEALs. Every enemy he’d fought in the military and every criminal he’d chased down for the NCIS had a face, a clear history, and a motive. But the enemy facing him now could be anywhere, anyone, and only God knew what they really wanted.

Would they make demands?

Would they instigate a third world war?

Or maybe just wait for the world to descend into anarchy?

They could deploy a weapon capable of killing millions. All from the shadows.

Doubt crept in when he thought about the immensity of what he was facing—he looked at Adler, sleeping in the passenger’s seat—with a German Interpol liaison whose grandmother played a key role in the development of a doomsday weapon.

The odds were stacked severely against them, but the memory of how Arwen received her burns stuck with him. She had faced impossible odds when she raced into the fire to save her brother. She failed in the attempt, but she tried. She ignored the danger, plunged in, and fought the odds. Miller’s odds of success seemed about as likely as Arwen’s had been. Failure was likely. But he shared Arwen’s spirit. He’d jump into the fire. Even if it killed him. As he turned away from Adler, he hoped she felt similarly. The fire was just getting started.

Four hours later, he pulled over at a twenty-four-hour rest area in Massachusetts. Adler woke up just as he finished fueling the car. She opened the door and got out. She stretched, yawned, took the keys from Miller’s hand, and walked to the driver’s side.

“Let’s go,” she said, climbing into the car and closing the door.

Miller grinned. He’d worried she might be a liability, but she was carrying her own weight, so far. After moving the Mini Cooper’s seat all the way back and reclining it as far as it could go, Miller climbed in. “It’s a straight shot up Route Ninety-five. Wake me up when we hit New Hampshire.”

Adler gave a nod and hit the gas. Miller was asleep before they left the rest area’s on-ramp.

He dreamed of a red sky and woke up to screaming.

27

“Scheiße!”

The shouted word rocked Miller from a hard sleep. His eyes snapped open as he felt the car jerk hard to the left. He saw a flash of Adler’s panic-stricken face. He drew the Glock, spun around, and searched for the vehicle that had tried to force them off the road.

There wasn’t a car in sight.

Then he saw it. A massive bull moose stood in the middle of the road watching them drive away. The giant easily outweighed the tiny car and towered over it. If they’d collided, he had no doubt the moose would have walked away after turning the car and its passengers into a metal-and-flesh pancake.

“Sorry,” Adler said. “Sorry.”

Miller sat up, raised the reclined seatback, and closed his eyes. The close encounter had set his heart pounding and adrenaline surging.

“It stepped right out in front of me,” Adler said, her voice full of apology.

Miller opened his eyes. “Haven’t been to New Hampshire before, I take it?”

“No,” Adler said. “Are moose common here?”

“They have bumper stickers that say, ‘Brake for moose.’” He smiled. “I nearly shot the bastard.”

“I don’t think your nine-millimeter would have done much.”

Miller looked at the gun. She was right. While it was great for putting deadly holes in a human body, the eight-foot-tall, fifteen-hundred-pound herbivore with a quarter-inch-thick hide would just be irritated by the small-caliber rounds.