The Diaries - 01 (5 page)

“While France and
Germany are fellow members of the EU, allies, and
mostly
friendly trading partners, there are certain aspects of
business between the countries where a certain level of competitiveness is
involved.
 
One area from which there is
much to learn, where a gain could be most beneficial to my government, is from
the Deutsch Customs office, the
Hauptzollamt
.”

Gage took a sip of
water, eyeing Jean.
 
“Customs.”
 
Oh
boy…you’re really in the big-time now, Gage.

“Yes, just Customs.
 
Not really sexy, but important nonetheless.
 
They certainly wouldn’t want their communications
compromised, but it’s not so sensitive that they will sweep the building.
 
It will simply be another office loaded with over-holidayed
German civil servants, living off the fifty-percent tax they levy on their
people.”

“And I take it you
want to see and hear what they are doing?”

Jean nodded with
closed eyes.
 
“Seeing is not necessary.
 
We simply want to be able to hear, and only
in the executive offices, and the board room of course.
 
A most simple task.”

“But sensitive
enough that you’re using a dissociated operative like me.”

Jean tapped his cigarette.
 
“Touché.
 
If you get caught, we don’t know you.
 
Of course.”

“Go on.”

“We’ll provide the
hardware.
 
It must be done imminently.
 
They are due to sign for the building next
week.”
 
Jean cocked a finely plucked
eyebrow, waiting.

What was just
proposed was a basic job, yet risky.
 
If
Gage were to get caught, his future in the business would be in jeopardy.
 
No more work in the European professional
community, and near-certain deportation.
 
Maybe even some jail time.
 
Although
he wasn’t crazy about Jean, a man in Gage’s profession couldn’t rat out his
employer.
 
To do so would not only get
him black-listed, but it would be a compromise of professional ethics.
 
If he took this job, he knew he would be on
his own, ready to fall on the sword.
 
Plenty
of reason to walk away right now.
 
On the
other hand he needed the money, badly, and in three weeks that greedy bastard Ernst
would want his fifteen-hundred euro.
 
Gage
adjusted his sunglasses, rubbing his temples with his fingers.
 
There was no real choice to be made—he had to
accept the risk.

“I should be able to
do it over the weekend.”
 
He held up a
finger as Jean was about to speak.
 
“For twenty-thousand,
in euro, no exceptions.”

Jean’s mouth
widened, his long face exposing narrow, catlike teeth framed inside the dyed black
goatee.
 
“You have a good mind,
Gage.
 
A sharp one.
 
This is precisely the number we’re prepared
to compensate, but in dollars.
 
Not
euro.”

Gage slid his
chair back, shaking his head as Jean took a final drag on the now short
cigarette.
 
“Sorry, Jean. It’s my figure,
or nothing.
 
A job like this, as simple
as it sounds, could be deeply laden with pitfalls.
 
Night watchmen, cameras…whatever. If I get
caught, I’m out of work for everyone in the EU.
 
Blacklisted.”
 
He jabbed a finger
at the Frenchman.
 
“And that’s why you’re
having it done at arm’s length, with a guy like me.”

“But you need the
money.”
 
It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah, Jean, I do.”
 
Bastard!
 
He has checked on me
, Gage knew
instantly.
 
He tried to not appear
surprised that Jean would know such a thing.
 

Jean crushed his
cigarette out and stood, his head shrouded in smoke and rich, honey-colored
morning sun.
 
“Merci, Gage.
 
I appreciate your taking the time to meet me
and, as always, I enjoyed your company.
 
I
guess I’ll just go see the man known as The Glaswegian, the icy one who did
that quiet business on those two kidnappers in Hannover not too long ago.
 
He works relatively cheap, and does a decent enough
job from all I hear.”

Gage balled his
fists in his lap, grinding his teeth as he closed his eyes.
 
A full-blown headache was now forcing its way
into his head like an unwelcome visitor.

“Ciao,” Jean said while
sliding ten euro under the ashtray.
 
He
held his overcoat over his arm, walking away without a trace of hesitation.

Gage opened his
eyes when Jean was about to turn the corner.
 
The Frenchman didn’t look back.

Gage stood, angry
with himself.
 

Gage trotted after
the DGSE agent.

Gage took the job.

And Jean, a very
thorough man, knew he would.
 
In the end,
he agreed to pay in euro, but only
after
converting it from dollars.

Chapter 2

Gage
stepped into the area
behind his flat and studied the slip of paper, memorizing it and repeating its
contents in a whisper three times before setting it aflame.
 
Once the paper singed his finger, he dropped
it into the damp alcove leading to the building’s basement, watching to confirm
its destruction.
 
The cold wind slapped
Gage in the face as he stepped from behind the building, stuffing his hands
deep into the pockets of the warm pea coat.
 
A black stocking cap was pulled down over his head, making him look like
nearly any other German heading to the Bad Homburg S-
bahn
station on bustling
Daimlerstrasse
.
 
October was hit or miss in Germany; this one
had been cold from the get-go.
 
The trees
had shed their leaves; the few that remained were on the ground, blowing by
Gage’s boots as he walked.

He boarded the S5 line
for the fifteen-minute trek into the center of Frankfurt, sitting alone and
enjoying the fact that the train wasn’t extremely crowded, most likely because
it was a slate-gray Saturday afternoon and people were riding out the cold and
gloomy day in the comfort of their homes.
 
The few people that were on the train were quiet, keeping to themselves
like most Germans do.

Gage was permitted
to legally live in Germany on a work visa.
 
His “boss”, Peter Ernst, was nothing more than the profiteer of a false
front, collecting 1,500 euro monthly from hundreds of foreigners, giving them
everything they needed to maintain their work status and not be deported.
 
He likely had everyone from actors to
professional hit men on his payroll, doing whatever it was he did to keep the
Standesamt
off their
asses and out of his records.
 
Frankfurt
had been the ideal choice for Gage, although he would have preferred London
because he had more acquaintances there.
 
The central European location, the fact that he was fully fluent in
German, the excellent airport, and the lower cost of living cemented Frankfurt
as his ideal home base.

Now if I could just make some money, I might
actually feel good about myself
, Gage ruefully thought.
 
The walls of the tiled tunnel shot by as Gage
again pondered the alternative of “wet” jobs.
 
He could easily make more money—much more—if he was willing to kill or
maim.
 
Like an experienced skydiver who
has lost his balls, Gage could put himself in the door of that airplane but he could
no longer bring himself to jump.
 
Killing, wounding…the very thought awakened too many horrid memories.
 
Flustered, he tried to interrupt his brooding
pattern of thought, thinking back to the rich days, back when it all began.
 
Before the headaches.
 
Before the sunglasses at nighttime.
 
Before the nightmares that shrouded his
sleep.

Before Crete.
 
Always Crete.
 
Fucking Crete.

Stop it…old days.
 
Take it back to the old days.
 
The good days.

As a young
soldier, Gage Hartline, his Christian name Matthew
Schoenfeld
,
had been a commander’s dream.
 
He’d aced
nearly everything he was ever tasked with, making sergeant in only two short
years.
 
Shortly thereafter, like all
young sergeants with clean records and test scores of a certain level, Gage was
required to attend a Special Forces seminar.
 
It was there, in a bland Army auditorium, that a green beret-wearing master
sergeant painted a sunny picture of attaining such an elite status.
 
One-and-a-half years of intense operational training
was all it took, followed by the world’s best language school.
 
The master sergeant talked about the unique
weaponry, the specialized tactics.
 
He
showed videos of improvised demolitions.
 
He told tales about makeshift medical procedures that would make a
surgeon jealous.
 
A well-practiced
storyteller, the statuesque master sergeant made serving in Special Forces
sound like a daily adventure.
 
And then he
dropped the bomb: the Special Forces selection program would weed out all
non-hackers in a matter of months—with a ninety-five percent failure rate.
 

Ninety-five
percent.
 

That was all it
took to entice Gage; he loved being up against the odds, and he knew his new
life’s goal would be to finish at the
top
of that five percent—the elite of the elite.

Gage did
everything he could to prepare for the initial selection process: a three-week hell
course intended to eliminate the pretenders before the real carnage even began.
 
He marched day and night, preparing himself
for days without sleep.
 
Knowing he
wouldn’t receive sufficient nourishment during school, Gage packed on as much
lean muscle as he could, choosing a high-protein diet as he went through his
grueling preparations.
 
The selection and
assessment course wiped out nearly seventy percent of the candidates right off
the bat, leaving only thirty percent for the actual schooling.
 
It had been hell.
 
Straight hell.

Hell or not, Gage
wasn’t the least bit relieved when he made it.
 

They gave the
candidates a week to physically recover before throwing them into the
proverbial fire of the full Qualification Course, beginning with a regimen of
grueling physical and mental activity that seemed to have no rhyme or reason to
it.
 
Days of loaded-down running, nights
of war games, tactical problem-solving, near-impossible physical tasks without
the aid of light: the trainees never received any warning of what was
coming.
 
The remaining thirty percent
dwindled to fifteen percent after only three more weeks.
 
By that point, all that remained were the
true hard-cases, and they each had brains to back it up.
 
From there, the cadre had only ten more weeks
to weed out the rest, nearly doing so in the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and
Escape Course (SERE).
 
The enduring trainees
knew there couldn’t be too much more time before the language blitz began.
 

They were
correct.
 

On Thanksgiving weekend
1993, the survivors finally fell to the promised five-percent.

It had started off
innocently enough, with a promised turkey lunch in the small Quonset hut on the
pine-laden western range of Fort Bragg.
 
After a morning of intense physical training, and no breakfast, the
thirty one soldiers of class Bravo-212 were famished.
 
The long tables were arranged beautifully, centered
around three large birds, each mouthwateringly dressed and ready to be
devoured.
 
Just as Gage had been about to
stuff the first bite of succulent bird in his mouth, the alarm sounded.
 
The dreaded assembly alarm.
 
Each man, knowing they had been had, dropped
their forks and sprinted to the ready line in the small quad.
 
It was there they received their literal
marching orders.
 
They would road
march—nothing more than a painful run in boots—tactically to a spot on a map
approximately eighteen kilometers away, and they had only two hours to do
so.
 
Normally, such a task wouldn’t be
all that tough, but lined up across from them were their rucksacks, and they
were oddly shaped because of the bricks they contained.

“Or you can quit
and go eat,” the instructor said.
 
“Got
turkey, stuffing, cakes and pies in there.
 
I’ll even pour you some egg
nog
and good
cheer,
if’n
you want that.”
 
He surveyed the formation of tattered
men.
 
No one budged.
 
“Alright then,” he said, motioning to the
rucksacks before lifting his Timex and touching the center button.
 
“Haul ass.”

The entire squad
made it, with each man humping a hundred and twenty pounds of bricks, sixty
pounds more than they typically carried.
 
Hardened, calloused feet, more than used to the brutality of the
selection process were now bleeding, rubbed raw from the physical forces of the
weight grinding their flesh against the leather of their boots.

At the checkpoint,
each man was given one half canteen of water.
 
The instructor again informed them that anyone wanting to quit would be
whisked back to the hut and allowed to sit in the heat, watching the Dallas
Cowboys on television, eating all the Thanksgiving dinner he wanted.

No takers.

“Fine, then,” he
said, displaying a small degree of pride.
 
“Here’s your next point,” he said, handing the map to the soldier next
to Gage.
 
“Another eighteen
klicks
, hillier route, and this time you got ninety
minutes.
 
Anyone a second late is an
automatic bolo.”

Three men dropped
out upon hearing the distance and speed required.
 
Physically, they stood no chance.

Twenty-eight
remained.

Hell ensued.

Twenty made it to
the checkpoint.
 

Gage arrived
fourth, his right foot bothering him, making him worry he might be getting a
stress fracture: the dreaded curse of the marching soldier.

It was fully dark
by that time.
 
The instructors, knowing
they had an iron-forged group of men remaining, upped the ante.
 
“This next one is thirty
klicks
,
and you got two and a half hours.”
 
Most
soldiers can run a seven and a half minute mile with no problem, but to be able
to do so in bloodied boots, with a hundred and twenty pounds strapped to your
back, during the night, over uneven terrain, without nourishment, after months
of unrelenting torment is nearly inhuman.
 
And certainly inhumane to be made to do so, but the remaining twenty
didn’t think that way.

It took Gage three
miles to get going and, although he could feel his foot swelling, he wouldn’t
quit unless the damned thing fell off.
 
The competitive spirit of the men, individually, was gone—they were now
pulling for one another—a kindred spirit that only months and months of
hellacious treatment could bring out in a group of such diverse people.
 
When Helms and Gilder dropped back, it was
Gage and another buddy who urged them on, even taking on bricks from their
packs and physically pulling the men.
 
But that type of help only lasts so long and, by the time the last man
reached the truck, there were only seventeen remaining.

The soldiers were
delirious, so in need of food and water that they struggled to comprehend what was
happening.
 
They were like robots, moving
forward only because that was how they were programmed.
 
After reaching the truck, one of the
remaining soldiers mumbled something to the others that made him sound as if he
was speaking in tongues.
 
The lone
instructor allowed them to drink a canteen of water but insisted they remain
standing.
 
He stood perched on the
truck’s tailgate, holding a steaming canteen cup of coffee, toasting them with
it.
 
“You guys are
tougher’n
leather—I’ll give you that.
 
And you’ll
need to be because this next
leg’ll
take you to
daylight.
 
Fifty
klicks
,
four and a half hours.
 
That’s more than
a marathon, gentlemen.
 
Then we’ll see
who’s left standing.”

It was a
shame.
 
As soon as the words were out of
the instructor’s mouth (and comprehended) the seventeen men became eleven.
 
Six men, their uniform blouses stained with sweat-diluted
blood from the rubbing of their straps, dropped their packs, staggering to the
truck for more water and nourishment.

The instructor,
lit by a ring of glow sticks on the tailgate, shook his head as he watched
them, asking the rest of the haggard group if they wanted to join them.
 
Wavering only from their physical battering,
each man’s boots stayed planted on the ground.

He lifted his arm,
starting his stopwatch again and telling them they’d better haul ass.
 
Gage was feverish and dizzy, but he turned
left and began his stagger, feeling the broken metatarsal in his right foot as
it again began to rub against its other half, grating like two sharp rocks
being scraped together—it had finally given way midway through the last
segment, snapping like a dry twig.
 
And
while it was painful, Gage had come too far to stop.
 
He attempted to zone out the pain; he was going
to keep moving forward.
 
He had to.

The soldiers, now too
tired to even encourage one another, plodded along as fast their weary bodies
would allow; the sharp straps of the packs and the friction of their boots were
lubricated by sweat and slick blood from their blisters, aiding them in a
hideous slice of Army irony.
 
After a
half kilometer, as the group was crossing a low bridge, floodlights flashed on,
blinding them as they jumped into the creek on both sides, thinking it might be
a simulated ambush.
 
As their eyes
adjusted, they saw every cadre member standing in the road, silently waiting.