The Apocalypse Watch (79 page)

“I don’t know.”

“Then none of us knows … anything.” The bodyguard was adamant. “The doctor is fine, the whore left on her own volition—Heinrich can verify that—and everything is normal,
right
?”

“Why not?” agreed the guard named Heinrich at the desk. “Even Herr Doktor Traupman would find it acceptable. He’d rather not see those women in the morning.”

“So then, my comrades, nothing happened,” said the man, glancing at his empty flask. “I will continue my
watch, stopping in the garage and my automobile for replenishment.”

The floodlights shining down on the docks of the marina on the Rhine River in Bonn were in full force. All but one would be extinguished when the small powerboat left its slip in a matter of minutes. A half-mile away, in darkness, was another craft, its hull and deck painted a deep hunter green, its engine off, bobbing up and down in the gentle river currents; its inhabitants were in wet suits, scuba tanks strapped to their backs. There were six of them, the sixth person, a captain, an agent of the Deuxième. Of the five prepared to go underwater, only Karin de Vries had to vociferously justify her inclusion.

“I’ve probably had more experience with scuba equipment than you have, Officer Latham.”

“I doubt that,” Drew had replied. “I was trained at the Scripps Institute in San Diego, and you don’t get any better than that.”

“And I learned with Frederik in the Black Sea, four weeks of preparation—our cover was a sporting husband and wife. If Stanley’s memory is intact, he might recall the exercise.”

“I do, young lady,” Witkowski had said. “We paid for the whole operation.… Freddie de V brought back a couple of hundred underwater shots of the Soviet vessels in and around Sevastopol. Tonnage, displacement, the whole enchilada.”

“I took at least a third of those photographs,” added Karin defiantly.

“All right,” Latham had conceded, “but if we get out of this alive, you’re going to have to learn that you don’t wear the pants in the family.”

“And you’ll not get into mine unless you change your attitude.… Did you just ask me to marry you?”

“I’ve asked you before—not in so many words, but plain enough—what’s new?”

“Put a cap on it, you two,” ordered Witkowski. “Here comes Dietz.”

The commando captain approached and squatted in
front of them. “I’ve gone over the strategy with our skipper and he can find no holes. Now, let me go over it again with you people.”

Captain Christian Dietz’s plan, if not a masterpiece of confusion, was certainly designed to elude penetration during the moments of hostile activity. Trailing the dark green motorboat, hauled by a rope, was a black PVC life raft with a 250 hp engine, capable of making 40 knots an hour. In addition, rolled up at the bow was a black tarpaulin that could be released over the entire raft, engine included. The strategy was simplicity itself—if everything worked according to schedule.

A mile or so out of its slip, Traupman’s small boat would be attacked by the underwater N-2 unit, its gas jets plugged by liquid-steel caps that would harden in seconds. Then from all sides the roving television cameras were to be shorted out by silent pellets exploded from pistols as powerful as .357 Magnums. The unit would then board Traupman’s boat, rip out all other communications equipment, sedate the doctor, and deliver him to the black PVC raft with the Deuxième captain, who would roll out the black tarpaulin. Traupman’s boat would then be set on automatic pilot upriver, while the unit returned to their painted dark green motorboat to head into shore near Traupman’s destination.

The first two exercises worked. Under the guidance of Lieutenant Anthony and Captain Dietz, Latham, Witkowski, and Karin surfaced beside the speeding boat, grabbing whatever ribs they could find and shoving the steel caps into the small circular gas holes marked by small red circles. The craft slowed down; it was heading into shore. As one, all five climbed on board, facing a terrified Traupman.

“
Was ist los?
” he screamed, reaching for his radio. It was instantly torn out by Latham, while Karin walked up to the Nazi, ripped open his jacket, and inserted a needle into the flesh beneath his shirt. “I will have you
shot
 …!” were the last words Traupman spoke before falling to the deck.

“Get him into the raft!” yelled Witkowski as the black
PVC pulled alongside and the Nazi’s body was lowered over the gunwale. “Now, full speed out of here!”

“I’ll circle the boat and put it on auto, north-northwest!” cried Christian Dietz.

“What the hell is
that
?”

“Not to worry, Cons-Op,” replied Lieutenant Gerald Anthony. “It’s straight up the Rhine, curves included. We studied the maps.”

“Traupman was headed toward that yellow light on a dock over on the left,” said Karin.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” said Drew.

“I hope so, for I will
not
be denied.”

“Then over the sides and swim to our own boat, if we can see it.”

“I anchored it, Cons-Op,” said Anthony. “It’s right over there—no more than a hundred feet away. Once we’re on board, I’ll steer it into shore under a bunch of trees.”

“How would you like to be a colonel, Lieutenant?”

“I’d
love
it!” cried Captain Dietz, returning from making sure Traupman was under black cover in the motorized raft and was on his way to the opposite side of the Rhine. “Let
him
pay for
my
dinners.… Let’s get out of here! We’ve got to send this hunk of wood upriver.”

The suggestion came none too soon, for within minutes, as Traupman’s empty boat reached the center of the Rhine, the marina helicopter descended, as if to provide rescue equipment. Instead, a continuous fusillade of machine gun rounds sprayed the craft, circling twice, and finally blowing it apart with cannon fire. It sank.

“That’s hardball,” said Latham to Karin and their three colleagues as they sat on the banks of the Rhine.

“I say we go back to that dock, wait and see who else arrives, and find out how hard,” said Witkowski.

T
hey removed the scuba equipment from their backs, leaving the black wet suits and coarse rubber foot coverings intact. Assorted weapons and miniaturized walkie-talkies were taken out of Captain Dietz’s waterproof duffel bag and distributed. The semi-commando unit then crawled along the riverbank to within sight of the dock with the dull yellow light. Slowly, at approximately ten-minute intervals, the small, sleek boats drifted into the slips from various directions until the majority were filled. Suddenly, the yellow light was extinguished.

“I think the class is assembled,” whispered Latham to Witkowski. Karin was on the colonel’s left, the two commandos on Drew’s right.

“Gerry and I will reconnoiter,” said Dietz as he and the lieutenant elbowed forward, the blades of their long knives erratically reflecting the moonlight.

“I’ll go with you,” said Latham.

“That’s definitely not a good idea … sir,” protested Anthony. “We work better alone—sir.”

“Cut the ‘sir’ crap, please. I’m not army, but I’m running this operation.”

“What he means, Mr. Cons-Op,” explained the captain, “is that he and I have signals we recognize when we’ve studied an area. Like the low rustle of a breeze through the trees, or the gulp of a frog, anything that’s indigenous.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not for a second,” replied the lieutenant, “it’s basic to the work.”

“Also,” continued Dietz, “if this estate here is what all the reports suggest, there’ll be patrols roaming around.”

“Like Traupman’s place?” Witkowski interjected.

“That was chocolate cake, sir—I’d studied it before.”

“All right, go ahead,” said Drew. “Leave your radios on transmit and call us when we can move forward—and be careful.”

“That’s even more basic to the work,” said Anthony, glancing hesitantly over at Karin de Vries, and lowering his whisper to the point where Latham could barely hear him. “Our orders in Nuremberg were to immobilize, not neutralize. From what we saw that chopper do out there on the river, I don’t think that rule can apply here.”

“It doesn’t, Lieutenant. This is the core of the Nazi movement, so consider yourself at war. If it’s at all possible, we have to learn who’s in there, that’s the most important thing we can do. So if you have to use those knives, use them well.”

The following minutes were akin to the sound track of some ghoulish film noir, the images far more powerful, for they were imagined, not seen. Karin and Witkowski kept a single radio between them, Drew held his in front of his eyes. What all three heard caused each to wince, the colonel less so than Latham and De Vries. As the two commandos crept forward through the dense, tangled foliage of the riverbank, there were rushes of leaves and footsteps and sudden muted screams cut off by the horrible expulsions of air and liquid, the skewering of blades through flesh. Then more footsteps, racing, growing fainter, coughing grunts accompanied by cracking spits that had to be silenced pistol shots. More running feet, snaps of broken twigs, louder now, the range diminishing. Then silence—total, frightening—suddenly broken by a burst of static and the sound once again of footsteps, but on a hard surface. Karin, Drew, and Witkowski looked at one another, their intense eyes conveying their fears of the worst. Then voices, all speaking German, pleading, supplications—in
German
! Crashes of metal and glass followed, now accompanied by moans and the exploding cry of a voice in
English
.

“My God, don’t kill me!”

“
Christ!
” exploded Witkowski. “They’ve been captured. You stay here, I’m going after them!”

“Hold it, Stanley,” ordered Drew, gripping the colonel’s shoulder with the strong hand of a former, younger hockey champion. “Stay where you are, I
mean
that!”

“I’ll be damned if I will! Those boys are in trouble!”

“If they are, you’ll only get killed, and we all had that option, isn’t that what you said?”

“This is
different
! I’ve got a full automatic with clips enough to fire two hundred rounds.”

“I feel the same way you do, Stosh, but that’s not why we’re here, is it?”

“You big son of a bitch,” said the colonel quietly, lowering himself to the ground, “you really could be an officer.”

“Not in any army I ever heard of, I can’t stand the uniforms.”

“All right,
chłopak
, what do we do?”

“We wait—that’s another thing you told me—waiting’s the hardest part.”

“So it is.”

It was not, however, as the breathless voice of Captain Christian Dietz came softly over the radio. “Beach One to Beach Two. We’ve taken out four patrols by necessity, roped and taped two others who gave no resistance. We then followed the lines and captured the security center in a subcellar below the carriage house sixty or seventy yards east of the estate. Of the three operators here, one is dead, shot while attempting to set off an auxiliary alarm, another roped and taped, the third—a good-ol’-boy redneck who married a German girl while in the army—is still crying and singing ‘God Bless America.’ ”

“You guys are fantastic!” exclaimed Drew. “What’s happening at the big house? Did you get a chance to see?”

“Only a couple of glimpses through the windows once we took out the lawn patrols. Between twenty and thirty men and some blond-haired priest at the lectern who wasn’t offering any prayers, just fire and brimstone. By the looks of things, he’s the chief rabbi around here.”

“A
priest
?”

“Well, he’s in a dark suit with a white collar around his neck. What else could he be?”

“There was a priest or a minister in Paris—how tall is he?”

“Not your size, but pretty close. I’d say five eleven or six feet.”

“Oh, my
God
!” intruded the panicked voice of Karin de Vries, her whole body trembling.

“What?”

“A
priest
 … with blond
hair
!” Shuddering, she covered the radio and whispered to Latham and Witkowski. “We must get over to one of those windows.”

“What is it?” asked Drew as the colonel stared at De Vries. “What’s the
matter
?”

“Do as I
say
!”

“Do it,” said Witkowski, his eyes still on Karin.

“Beach Two to Beach One, what’s the scene like at the estate?”

“I don’t think we missed anyone, but I can’t guarantee it. You know, a guy could’ve been taking a leak somewhere in the bushes—”

“Then when he came out he’d find a few corpses, wouldn’t he?”

“If so, he might have opted for getting the hell out of here and reaching some neos in Bonn.”

“I think you’re better than that,” said Drew. “We’re moving forward.”

“Just calm down, Cons-Op. Wait’ll we position ourselves between the house and the river. I’ll let you know when to come out.”

“I’ll accept that, Captain. You’re the experts.”

“You better believe it … sir,” said the voice of Lieutenant Anthony. “And please keep Mrs. de Vries on your river flank in case there’s a firefight.”

“Naturally.” Latham covered the radio and spoke to Karin over Witkowski’s head. “You know, that kid’s beginning to annoy me.”

“He’s okay,” said Witkowski.

“He’s twelve years old.”

“
Please
, the windows!” Karin urged.

“When we get the word, young lady.” Unobtrusively, the colonel reached for De Vries’s trembling hand and gripped it. “Easy, girl,” he whispered. “Control, remember?”

“You
know
…?”

“I don’t know anything. Just a few unanswered questions from the past.”

“Beach Two,” came Dietz’s quiet voice over the radio. “You’re clean, but stay low. There could be infrared trips waist-high until you reach the upper terrace.”

“I thought you short-circuited the system,” Witkowski broke in.

“The cameras and the fences, Colonel. They may be enough, but the trips could be wired underground and independent.”

“Understood, Captain, we’ll stay close to the ground.”

The trio crawled forward, Latham in the lead, the waves of the Rhine lapping over the path Drew created on the riverbank. Mud sticking to their wet suits, their weapons held directly over their heads, they reached the border of the estate’s sloping lawn. Coming side by side, each nodded to the other as they proceeded up through the grass to the first, lower patio overlooking the dock. Atop the ascending hill of manicured lawn was a second patioterrace, beyond which was the rear of the river mansion, a wall of sliding glass doors indicating an enormous interior, a ballroom or a banquet hall judging by the dimly lit chandeliers.