Call to Duty (16 page)

Tears rolled down her cheeks. “My father is a fascist and a Frenchman and I’m not sure who he hates more, the socialists or the English. I cannot tell you how many times before the war he said, ‘Better Hitler than Blum.’ The thought of a socialist prime minister of France drove him crazy. I was away at school, finishing my last year of medical studies, and did not know how much he meant it. When the Nazis marched into Paris, he actually rejoiced and immediately threw in with them. He was proud of what he was doing.” She looked at Zack, letting him see her tears. “But I was ashamed and joined the Resistance.

“My father did prove himself useful to our Nazi masters. So useful that two attempts were made on his life. The second one killed my mother but he escaped unharmed. Then it was decided to make him the French ambassador to the Netherlands to save his worthless life.” In spite of her tears, her words were hard and measured. There was no weakness, no
plea for pity or forgiveness in her voice. “The leader of my cell saw it as a chance to establish contact with the Dutch Underground and an attempt on my life was staged. The reaction of the Nazis was predictable. Two innocent men were picked up off the streets and shot. I was sent to join my father in the Netherlands.

“I could not bear to live with him but I could not escape him. So I threw myself into my practice. It was a perfect cover to establish contact with the Dutch Underground and I treated many who were only sick of the German occupation of their country. But I tended mostly Dutch Nazis. I was someone who could be trusted. When Madeline van Duren approached me to care for her son Jan, I thought she and her husband were like my father. Herr van Duren is the Dutch minister of education under the Nazis and very well connected. A faction of the Dutch Underground not with the House of Orange had decided to punish the van Durens by assassinating their son. They tried to beat Jan’s brains in but they failed and he survived. That’s when the van Durens sought me out to be his doctor. I was someone they could trust. Jan was scheduled to be moved to the clinic in Baden-Baden for treatment when I was asked by the Underground—I don’t know which group—to finish what they had started.” Her voice trailed off. Then, almost inaudibly: “He was very weak.”

Zack stared at her, trying to take it all in through the fog of his fever. “But Mrs. van Duren knew…She was with us.”

“I didn’t know at the time that the van Durens were working with the Dutch Underground.”

“Then Jan van Duren was totally innocent,” Zack interrupted.

“Yes, like all the victims of this war. The Underground told the van Durens their son was dead and asked if you could be substituted in his place. They said it was a matter of taking advantage of an opportunity.”

“Did the Underground tell them who killed Jan?” Zack asked. Chantal nodded an answer. “And the van Durens still cooperated.” This last from Zack was not a question but a statement filled with awe. Then it came to him: “Was Jan deliberately killed so I could take his place?” Chantal looked
away and didn’t answer. Zack pulled himself upright on one elbow and grabbed her arm, hurting her. “Answer me,” he demanded.

Before she could answer, voices echoed from downstairs, not loud but persistent. Chantal pulled free from his grasp and listened. “I only hear French, no German accents,” she said, biting her lower lip.

“Police?” Zack asked, collapsing back in bed, too weak to move.

“Yes,” she answered. Now they could hear footsteps move through the house below them. “There may be a way,” she said, thinking about the men who were searching the house. For a Frenchman, there was only one logical explanation for finding a young man and woman together in a bedroom. “Get undressed.” Zack stared at her as she quickly pulled her own clothes off. “Hurry,” she urged. He pulled his shirt off and was unbuckling his belt when she stepped out of the last of her clothes. He lay there, not able to take his eyes off her. Like many young unmarried men of his generation, Zack had never seen a naked woman before. The sight of her small and firm breasts, flawless back and well-shaped buttocks, narrow waist that flared into smooth hips, perfect legs and thighs that led his eyes naturally upward to the black triangle of hair overpowered him. “Please,” she whispered, “don’t look at me.” And he knew that she was a virgin.

“My God,” he whispered. “You’re beautiful.” She ignored him and threw their clothes around the room in wild abandon. Then she moved to the door and unlocked it, opening it a crack. Measured footsteps were climbing the stairs. She hurried to the bed and pulled his shorts off, careful not to disturb the bandage on his leg. She could see signs of the fresh ooze of blood. She threw his shorts to the floor and mounted him, adjusting the blankets to cover the lower halves of their bodies. “Please,” she whispered again, “don’t look at me.” She made a rocking motion back and forth as they were coupled and bent over him, her small breasts rubbing against his chest, her long dark hair hanging down, caressing his shoulders and face.

The door flew open and a man in the dark uniform of a French constable, a gendarme, stood there. “Raymond, Paul,” he shouted, laughing. “I have found what we are looking for.”
Two other men appeared behind him and pushed him into the room. Chantal collapsed onto Zack’s body and pulled the blankets up after they had all gotten a good look.

“Please,” she cried, “go away. My father, if he finds out…”

The three men shook their heads and laughed, delighted at their unexpected find. “Ah, mademoiselle,” the oldest of the three said, “we must examine your papers.” He said it in a mock-serious tone, enjoying the break in the search they had been detailed to conduct. Chantal rolled out of bed, careful to leave Zack’s legs covered, and scrambled for her clothes. She held them in front of her, trying to shield her body from their stares. The same man stepped up to her and pulled one of the garments away from her, pretending to carefully search it. Then he dropped it to the floor. “No identification papers there,” he said and pulled her skirt from her grasp. Again, he made a show of searching it, before dropping it to the floor and pulling the next garment out of her hands. Now Chantal was standing naked in the center of the room, the three French policemen surrounding her.

“Perhaps you have not searched her carefully enough,” the youngest said, running his hand down her side and across her pubic hair.

“Do you wish to search for my papers?” Zack said from the bed in perfect German. His voice was loud and commanding and he was propped up on one elbow, trying to act in control. The heads of the three men jerked around in unison and the one who had stroked Chantal stepped back. “Perhaps you would like to explain to your superiors how you embarrassed an officer of the Schutzstaffel who was traveling incognito? Yes?”

Only the oldest of the men spoke German but the two younger ones caught the word “Schutzstaffel” and they stood back and came to attention. The reputation of the SS was one they appreciated. Fear was plainly written across their faces. “Sir,” the oldest said, “we did not know. We are searching for two British pilots who are reported in the area.”

The relief Zack felt at this news shot through him like a warm tonic, reviving him and giving him hope. Perhaps, he thought, the vaunted German reputation for efficiency was overblown as the Vichy French were not searching for them.
He had no way of knowing that the Germans were not even looking for them and their cover had held while they were in Germany. The authorities had not connected what looked like the accidental death of a drunken cabdriver with the nonarrival of one Jan van Duren and his attending doctor at the clinic in Baden-Baden. Cracks caused by the stress of wartime were spreading through the German bureaucracy. Their only danger was of being picked up in a routine sweep by the police.

“Do we look like British pilots?’ he asked, trying to put the right inflection in his words, the right combination of boredom, disgust, and superiority.

“No, of course not,” the policeman said, now searching for a way to escape. Then his basic nature pushed through the fear that was clouding his judgment and demanded that he remember he was French and not a lackey to the Germans, especially a young arrogant bastard like the one in front of him. “If we could see your papers,” he spread his hands in an elegant gesture. “Surely you understand, a mere formality.”

Zack’s mind raced as he fought the fever and tried to find a way to give Chantal time to escape. He motioned for Chantal to return to the bed and the movement of the naked girl momentarily distracted the men. Zack was about to say that his official papers were in a nearby hotel and that they would go there when he was finished here. It was all he could think of. A loud “Chantal!” came from the doorway and everyone turned. Leonard was standing there with another man. “Oh, no,” Leonard whispered sotto voce. “Colonel von Duren, I had no idea.” He had heard the entire conversation and keyed on Zack’s story. He drew himself up in righteous indignation. “Chantal, get dressed. Wait for me downstairs.” He turned to the three Frenchmen. “My daughter…a foolish girl infatuated with a gallant officer. Please, you must understand…” He beckoned the three Frenchmen into the hall and they followed him out. “That’s Colonel von Duren,” he told the policemen, “the Butcher of Beauvais. You’ve heard of him and what he did there.” He dropped the thought as if it were a hot potato. “He is traveling incognito as a Dutchman, a Jan van Duren.”

“I’ve never heard of this Butcher of Beauvais,” the oldest of the three said, still trying to act in charge.

“Then you may handle him any way you wish but please let me and my daughter withdraw. The man can be very dangerous.”

“Wait,” the policeman ordered and walked back into the room, surprised to see Chantal back in bed in the same position as when they had first discovered them. Zack pointed at his coat on the floor and the Frenchman rifled through the pockets. The Germans are so damn arrogant, he thought, ordering our women about, degrading them, not caring what we think. His Gaulish anger flared and he wanted to shoot the German. But it was out of the question. As a gendarme in Vichy France, he was identified with the Germans and knew that his own well-being was linked to that of the Germans. Then he did what any self-respecting Frenchman would have done: He focused his anger on the girl and one single word formed in his mind—collaborator. He pulled out Zack’s Dutch passport. The name and picture tracked with what he had just been told. He glanced at Zack and froze. Chantal was rocking back and forth on top and Zack was staring at him with the coldest look he had ever seen. “All is in order,” he blurted, now determined to escape from this situation. “Please forgive the intrusion…. We were only doing our duty…surely you understand?”

“Not if I’m disturbed again,” Zack growled. “I hope you understand.”

The Frenchman came to attention and saluted, almost knocking his cap off. He assured Zack that he understood perfectly and beat a hasty retreat out of the room and down the stairs, taking the other two with hm. Outside, he paused for breath and tried to think of a way to make contact with the Resistance. He had to cover his own involvement with the fascists. One day the Germans would be gone….

Leonard and the stranger walked back into the room and waited until the sounds of the three departing men had faded away. Chantal rolled off Zack and Leonard passed her clothes to her as she dressed under the covers. “Good acting, old chap,” Leonard said. “I don’t think we’ll be bothered by them again.”

“Don’t be so sure of that,” the newcomer said. He was a dark, massive man, dressed in a dirty dark suit with an old-fashioned collarless shirt that was equally dirty. He wore a
greasy beret and hadn’t shaved in three or four days. The stubble on his face was streaked with gray and he needed a bath.

“This is one of the men I told you about,” Leonard explained. “He can get us across the Pyrenees into Spain.”

The smuggler examined Zack and shot a hard look first at Leonard, then at Chantal. He paused, evaluating the girl as she crawled out of the bed and stood up. “He is much worse than you told me and he needs to be in a hospital. This will be difficult.”

The Executive Office Building, Washington, D.C.

Mackay’s first three days on the staff of the National Security Council had been marked by confusion as he settled into his office, a windowless walk-in vault down the hall from Mazie. Wave after wave of intelligence inundated his office but no one would tell him what he was supposed to do with it. So he decided to get organized. He used the big table inside the vault to sort the masses of documents, reports, and reconnaissance imagery into ordered stacks. Then he spent the weekend wading through the various piles and made voluminous notes. Satisfied that he was at least treading water and no longer caught in a rip tide, he sat down at his desk and leaned back, making connections. Then he walked over to the table and worked through the pile labeled “Top Secret Ruff,” which contained the latest Keyhole 14 satellite imagery and analysis of Chiang’s Burmese compound. Mackay did not like what he was seeing.

“Oh, no!” Mazie said when she walked in. “I’ll never find anything now.”

“But I will,” Mackay replied.

“Have you seen this?” Mazie asked. She handed him a report with photographs from the CIA’s chief of station in the Bangkok embassy. The report detailed how a body had been thrown over the wall of the embassy. The dead man had been gutted, his head cut off and wrapped in his intestines. Included among the photographs was a picture of the diamond pendant earrings that had been stuck in the man’s earlobes.

Mackay reread the doctor’s description of the man and studied the photos. “This guy could be one of the pirates,” he said. “Heather Courtland was wearing a diamond earring like that one.”

“I hadn’t seen anything on that,” Mazie replied. “How did you know about it?”

“Something very bright was dangling from one of her breasts when they were transferred to the seaplane at the Gurkha camp. I saw it through the binoculars and thought at the time that it might have been an earring.”

“We can check that out,” Mazie said. “But if it’s true, that raises even more questions.” Mackay gave her a probing look. “Why would Chiang kill the man and then make sure we knew he was Heather’s kidnapper? Is he trying to send us a message?”

“This is getting weird,” Mackay said.

“It’s always weird,” Mazie replied, thumbing through the stack of Keyhole reports Mackay had been working on. “Find anything here?”

“Yeah,” he grunted. “Chiang has some pretty stiff defenses around his compound. He’s got a regiment-sized army, maybe two thousand men, all well-armed and trained by Israeli mercenaries.”

Mazie raised an eyebrow at this. “Source?” she asked.

“That comes from the Mossad,” Mackay answered. “And his air defense net is eye-watering. He has a Soviet-built Long Track radar for target acquisition that feeds a central command post in his compound. For engagement, he has four SA-Six Gainful surface-to-air batteries. Who knows where he got those. To back them up, there are concentric rings of ground observers armed with SA-Fourteen Gremlins.” Mazie looked confused. “The SA-Fourteen is an improved version of the Soviet SA-Seven Grail,” he explained. “It’s a shoulderheld surface-to-air missile that can engage an aircraft pulling eight g’s, head-on, and out to four thousand meters. The Soviets call it the Igla, the Needle. And it can put it to some pretty fancy aircraft. A slow-flying helicopter would be dead meat. The bottom line is that an aircraft can’t get within fifteen miles of that compound without being engaged and that it will take a major assault on the compound to free the hostages.”

“Isn’t this what Delta Force is for?” she asked.

“Nope,” he replied. “This calls for battalion-sized units complete with air strikes to soften them up.”

“An attack on that scale would destabilize the current Bur
mese government,” Mazie told him, “and that’s not on the political agenda. Is there any way our Special Forces can go in?”

“They can go in,” Mackay replied. “Getting them out is the trick. The sad fact is that the U.S. does not have a good record at bringing off small, surgical-type rescues. Sure, we do great at the big stuff, like Grenada when we went in after the medical students or Operation Warlord when the Rangers brought the POWs out of Iran. But those were big operations.”

She changed the subject. “What’s the latest on the hostages?”

“We’re still not sure where they are. I did see a report on Troy Spencer collected by Willowbranch, whatever that is.” He showed her the report.

“Willowbranch,” Mazie mused as she spun the combination of a heavy safe. She rooted around until she found what looked like a car key that gave her access to the System 4 computer terminal in the vault. After inserting the key, she typed in her personal access code. When the code was recognized and she had given the correct responses, she turned the key to the last detent, activating the program that the NSC used to monitor all covert intelligence operations. “Willowbranch is a CIA operation and produces good stuff” was all she said as she read the complete, unedited report. Mackay did not have the “need to know” that Willowbranch was the code name of a German national operating under cover as an anthropologist on an archaeological dig sponsored by the Burmese government.

“Too bad Willowbranch doesn’t know what happened to Anderson,” Mackay replied.

“I know where she is,” Mazie told him, her round face impassive.

“Then perhaps you should tell someone else besides me.”

The Capitol, Washington, D.C.

Senator William Douglas Courtland’s two aides were waiting for him to return to his ornate offices in the north wing of the Capitol. George Rivera was much more excited than Tina Stanley and kept telling her, “Wait until he sees them.”
Tina wished he would calm down. Finally, the senator arrived and motioned for them to follow him into his private office.

“These are grisly, but I think you should see them,” George said as he handed an envelope to his employer. The senator fingered the envelope, knowing what was inside but hesitant to look at the contents. George sat down, trying to be calm, but he was enjoying the senator’s obvious discomfort. Like so many of the power brokers in Washington D.C., Courtland tried to avoid facing the down side of their environment. Environment, George Rivera thought, that’s a good word to describe the arena they contended in—the brutish world of politics, money, rule, and, in its final congealed form, raw power. It did have its ugly side.

“How did you get them?” Courtland asked as he slipped the three photos out of the envelope.

“A contact in the CIA,” George told him. “Pontowski told Burke to bury them.” The aide allowed a slight smile, the smile of the insider who knows how to make the system work. “There’s always some asshole who thinks he can manipulate the system—just another virgin eager to become a slut. They play a game when they don’t know the rules and we win.”

Courtland cleared his throat and looked at the photos. George successfully masked his smile as Courtland gasped for air. “My God,” he managed, struggling for control. Courtland was a gutter fighter who consistently played on the foul line of politics. His feet may have been covered with chalk dust, but he knew where the line was and, more important, the penalties for crossing it. “We can’t leak these to the press—too gruesome. Reporters will start investigating, digging for the story behind the story. They’ll reveal my office was the source and that would mean a showdown with Pontowski. I can’t take that kind of heat. Look, you don’t know that Polack bastard like I do. He’d stab me in the back thirty ways from Sunday over this.”

“I know a middle man,” Tina Stanley ventured.

Fort Bragg, North Carolina

The heavily built, sandy-haired colonel walked briskly through the compound, glad to be away from the paper shuf
flers at headquarters USSOCOM and back with his command, Delta Force. As usual, Colonel Robert Trimler felt better when he was with his men. It was six-fifty in the morning and most of them were in “the rough,” dressed in civilian clothes or wearing beige shorts, T-shirts, and tennis shoes for physical training. The shorts were Navy UDT issue, which had been relieved from Navy-Seal ownership during a joint exercise. Trimler took it all in as he walked through the building, satisfied with the fanatical concern his men gave to physical conditioning.

When he entered the command section, Sergeant Dolores Villaneuva stood up. “Welcome back, sir,” she said, her voice a low contralto. The statuesque brunette had been at work an hour and had his desk ready. “The usual paperwork,” she told him. “No critical fires that need to be put out. And the new CSM, Sergeant Major Kamigami, is on board.”

“No doubt,” Trimler said, his southern accent remarkably strong, “he’s impressing the troops in his own inimitable way.” He gave her his misshapen grin. “I knew the CSM while in the Rangers. We were on Operation Warlord together.” The secretary was impressed. She, like most connected with special operations, had read the after-action reports on that operation and had heard the unofficial accounts that told much of the true story. “Staff meeting in twenty minutes,” he told her as he disappeared into his office.

The eight men who made up Delta’s command section were standing when Trimler entered the room. He shook hands with Kamigami and then asked them to sit down. He came right to the point. “Delta has been ordered to start planning and training for the rescue of the five American hostages being held by Chiang. At this time we can only assume they are in Chiang’s compound in Burma.” He was pleased that no one was surprised by his announcement. Every person in Delta was highly tuned to world events and they were always looking for trouble spots where they might be involved. From the discussion that went around the room, Trimler knew that they had anticipated the mission and had given it an enormous amount of thought. The men of Delta could take bad news but they hated surprises. In this case, they were unanimous that it was bad news.

After the meeting broke up, Trimler motioned for
Kamigami to join him. The sergeant headed them down the corridor toward the Shooting House as they walked and talked. “Well, Sergeant Major,” Trimler asked, “what are your first impressions?”

Kamigami didn’t answer him at first and kept pace beside his commanding officer. “Much as I expected,” he finally said. Trimler waited for more. Kamigami was a man of few words and those he did use were carefully budgeted. “There is one problem.”

Trimler’s right eyebrow shot up. He had assumed command of Delta after the Persian Gulf War and had found it highly motivated and with high morale after the clandestine missions they had carried out against the Iraqis. He was satisfied that he had not inherited a barrel of problems bequeathed to him by the former commander. In fact, his impression had been just the opposite. But he knew from personal experience that he had best listen to what Kamigami had to say. “Lay it out, Sergeant Major. I can’t take a basket case into combat.”

“They’re not a basket case,” Kamigami said. “Morale is sky-high and they are well-trained.” Kamigami gave an inward sigh. This was going to be a long speech for him and he hoped the colonel would understand his point. “What I see are three hundred shooters who live up to the image of Delta. They all wear nice watches, a Rolex or Seiko, are absolutely fanatical about staying in shape, every one of them is field-oriented, and I doubt if one has his hair or mustache within Army standards. You don’t see a single tattoo and most of them have a Skoal ring on the hip pocket of their jeans.” Kamigami nodded toward a sergeant wearing blue jeans and Trimler could see the white circular outline of a snuff can etched on his right hip pocket.

“I hadn’t noticed the watches or the tobacco chewing,” Trimler said.

Again, Kamigami said nothing for a few moments. “I’m not surprised, sir. What you saw was what you expected.”

“I don’t see any of this as being a problem, Sergeant Major.”

“It’s how the watches and Skoal rings got there that’s the problem. Sir, I’ve talked to the old heads about what they did in the Persian Gulf. It was too easy.”

Trimler said, “You’ve lost me.”

“Sir, the Iraqis were too easy. Delta went in, did its job, helped dispatch a bunch of Iraqis to paradise, mostly by laying a laser designator on a target, and only lost three men. Those three were killed when the helicopter extracting them ran into a sand dune. The Skoal rings and watches tell me they are full of self-confidence. That’s good. But it’s a self-confidence gained by taking on a bunch of clowns. Chiang has a small army of highly motivated and trained soldiers. They are not Iraqis.”

“And that’s a problem?”

“Yes, sir, it is. Especially if we have to go into Chiang’s backyard. Every one of these eccentrics has got to believe that he’s taking on a new and much better opponent.”

Trimler was beginning to understand Kamigami’s concern. It was a very finely drawn point that many of his fellow officers would consider a fit subject for a chat with a psychiatrist, not worthy of long discussion between a commander and his CSM. But that was what gave a unit like Delta a razor-sharp cutting edge—the very edge that could make all the difference when they were up against a fanatical enemy. “So what do we concentrate on?” the colonel asked.

“Killing,” Kamigami answered.

“Any idea which of our men aren’t up to it?”

“As of now, I don’t know. But I know how to find out.” Trimler didn’t answer and only looked at his GSM. “We assume everybody needs to be refocused,” Kamigami said. “And we start with you and me.” He pushed the door to the Shooting House open and called for the NCO in charge.

The sergeant in charge of the Delta’s Shooting House was detailing the exercise Kamigami had laid on. “This is a routine part of our training,” the NCO said, more concerned with impressing the CSM than Trimler. He sketched a diagram of the exercise room, explaining the setup. “The three dummies standing around the room holding weapons are terrorists. The dummy tied to the chair is the hostage. A four-man team will clear the room, killing the terrorists and releasing the hostage. A cut-and-dried operation.”

“Then anyone in Delta can do it?” Kamigami asked.