Authors: David Hagberg
Desert Fire (28 page)
THE AUTOBAHN WAS already blocked off by the time the truck bearing Roemer, Wadud and the two Mukhabarat agents pulled up behind a tall van parked off the highway below the holding ponds. It was very cold, but the wind had died and the stars shone as brilliant points.
Trautman and two of his engineers waited inside the van with the silver radiation suits, in radio contact with Colonel Faulkner and Whalpol.
“The others are already in place,” Trautman said as Roemer and the others pulled on the bulky suits.
“Any trouble getting in?” Roemer asked.
“Apparently not.”
They climbed out of the van and started up the hill into the dark woods. They reached the holding ponds ten minutes later. The area was guarded by a tall chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Radiation warnings were posted around the perimeter.
A haze of vapor rose from the glistening, warm water,
though ice had formed around the edges of the large, rectangular concrete ponds.
though ice had formed around the edges of the large, rectangular concrete ponds.
Trautman unlocked the gate and they went inside, climbed up over the earthwork ramparts and made their way to the pool that had been partially drained. Three large pipes were exposed. Two were blocked by a thick steel mesh; the third was open. An aluminum ladder led down to the pipe, three meters below the lip of the pond.
“It's nearly five hundred meters into the pump room,” Trautman said.
They stopped above the open pipe. Roemer pulled out his walkie-talkie. “Situation Two?” he radioed.
No answer.
“Too much earth between here and there,” Trautman said. “But we'll be able to hear you from the other side.”
Roemer tucked the walkie-talkie inside his suit and sealed the jacket.
Trautman checked the water with his Geiger counter. “It's not bad,” he said. “While you're inside the tunnel you won't have any radio communication with anyone.”
They'd each brought an extra handgun to carry outside of their suits in case they ran into trouble before they were decontaminated. They would have to leave those weapons in the decontamination closet. Roemer stuffed his into an outer pocket.
“You each have sixty minutes of oxygen built into the suits, which will give you more than enough time, even if you do run into some trouble,” Trautman said.
“We'd better get started.” Roemer pulled on his hood. Trautman and his technicians made sure they were sealed in and their air supplies turned on; then they gave the thumbs-up.
Roemer started down the ladder first. Awkwardly, he felt for the lip of the pipe, and swung his legs inside.
He had to hunch over. His shoulders brushed the sides of the pipe.
Wadud came next, and then Salman and Bouchiki. As Roemer moved a few meters up the pipe, the darkness
closed in on him. His knees bent, his left hand brushing the pipe ceiling as a guide, he moved on up the pipe.
closed in on him. His knees bent, his left hand brushing the pipe ceiling as a guide, he moved on up the pipe.
Within seconds they were completely cut off from the outside. Inside the radiation suits, sounds were muffled. The cool bottled air had a metallic taste.
Fifty meters in, the pipeline angled steeply and the going became more difficult. Roemer began to sweat. He imagined that the demolitions team had been discovered and killed; Sherif's people were in the control room now, ready to throw the switch that would divert reactor water through this pipe. At least Leila was out of this. If she was still somewhere within the KwU compound, Rudi would find her and take her away. Zwaiter had been gunned down; she was burned out. There was a good chance she had returned to Bonn to get as far away as she could from whatever was going to happen to her father.
The angle of the pipe steepened again. Roemer had to bend into it, using his hands to keep from slipping back. Colonel Faulkner's people had made it up to the pump room, so he didn't think it could get much worse. But the going was tough.
The pipe seemed to go on forever. Once he slipped and Wadud stumbled up behind him.
“Are you all right?” Wadud shouted, his voice distant.
“Fine,” Roemer shouted, and they continued.
He thought about his father. The pain had mostly gone, though he was glad he wasn't topside now to witness his father's body being offered up at the building gate.
Roemer figured they had been inside the pipe for about twenty minutes when he realized he could see. Ahead, a diffused light barely outlined the curve of the pipe.
They took out their guns.
Roemer continued quietly forward. A few meters from the circular opening he stopped to listen. He could hear machinery running, but nothing else.
Gripping his gun in his gloved fist, he looked through
the opening into a large, high-ceilinged room crammed with machinery. Pipes ran in every direction.
the opening into a large, high-ceilinged room crammed with machinery. Pipes ran in every direction.
On the far side of the room an open door led to a corridor. One of Faulkner's men, a German Army Gewehr 3A3 assault rifle at the ready, leaned against the door frame. He spotted Roemer and urgently beckoned for him to come out.
Careful not to rip his suit on the jagged edges of the torched opening, Roemer climbed out into the floor of the pump room.
The soldier spoke into a walkie-talkie as Roemer helped the others out of the pipe.
A second soldier appeared in the doorway. He pointed to the far end of the room. “Decontamination,” he mouthed.
They trotted along the line of pipes into a large, white-tiled room and then into a long, narrow area with red arrows painted on the floor. Multiple shower heads lined the ceiling and walls.
ATTENTION, a notice read. ENTER DECONTAMINATION STALL FULLY CLOTHED. FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS. SHOWERS ARE AUTOMATIC.
Roemer stepped in. Water mixed with foam spurted out of the shower heads, deluging him. Halfway through the stall, the water cleared and blow-dryers came on. Another notice advised him to wait for a Geiger-counter check. A red light would mean he had to go through the process again; green would mean he was decontaminated and could discard his outer clothing.
The light turned green. Roemer stepped out of the stall and peeled off his radiation suit.
Wadud appeared a moment later. He pulled off his hood and took a deep breath of fresh air.
“I'll be out in the corridor,” Roemer said. “Hurry it up.” Trautman's men, sergeants Menzel and Brecht, were waiting at the far end of the pump room.
“Any troubles?” Roemer asked.
“Plenty,” Menzel said, keeping his voice low. He
glanced down the long corridor, at the end of which was a set of stairs leading up. “One of Sherif's glory boys is parked at the head of the stairs. We're not going to have a chance in hell of getting near the reactor.”
glanced down the long corridor, at the end of which was a set of stairs leading up. “One of Sherif's glory boys is parked at the head of the stairs. We're not going to have a chance in hell of getting near the reactor.”
“Can he be seen from the control room?”
“They can see him, all right.”
Wadud came out of the pump room. “Salman and Bouchiki will be right with us. What's wrong?”
Roemer explained. Wadud pulled out his VP70 Hessler-and-Koch nine-millimeter automatic and Kevlar silencer, which he screwed on the end of the short barrel.
“I'll take him out. Hani can put on his uniform. It'll get us in.”
“Any sign of the hostages?” Roemer asked Menzel.
“They're probably on the top floor,” Menzel said. “The front stairs lead directly to the reactor room. If we can take out their man, we'll have a chance.” He pointed the other way down the corridor. “The elevator is around the corner. But now the car is up on the third floor. We can get the door open and someone can go up the shaft. Unless they decide to bring the car down it should be okay. The back stairs are at the far end of the corridor.”
“Have you checked them?”
“Only to the first floor. There's a steel fire door. Not wired. I'd say it probably opens on the reactor room main floor. In full view of the control room above.”
“They're threatening to blow the reactor at any minute,” Roemer said. “Which means we're going to have to do this right the first time.”
AN AMBULANCE HAD drawn up to the helicopter bearing the body of Roemer's father.
Whalpol looked out the back of the communications truck as a white-shrouded bundle was unloaded from the helicopter. He shuddered.
Colonel Faulkner had been listening on the walkie-talkie. He nodded to Whalpol. “They're inside, but it's taking longer than we thought it would.”
It was past midnight. Whalpol was tired. But it would be over with, one way or the other, very soon. “We give them Lotti Roemer now. It'll distract them for a few minutes.”
“What about the evacuation?”
“Keep it going. Lieutenant Manning knows the drill.”
“The media people are raising hell.”
“Let them,” Whalpol said.
The ambulance pulled away from the helicopter and drove slowly over to the communications truck.
Whalpol instructed the radioman to raise the R&D building.
Colonel Habash came back immediately: “You're running out of time.”
“We have Lotti Roemer's body, Colonel Habash.”
The radio was silent for a moment. Habash would be checking with the general.
“What about the son?” Habash radioed.
“He is on the operating table.”
“How soon can you have him here?” Habash radioed. “Alive and awake.”
“Three hours.”
“You have thirty minutes, Major Whalpol.”
“We'll try,” he radioed.
“We want the body brought to within fifty meters of our gate, uncovered so we can see the face, and we want your ambulance to withdraw.”
Faulkner looked at Whalpol.
“We're waiting,” Habash radioed.
“We'll do as you say,” Whalpol answered. “In the meantime we're evacuating all civilian personnel from the area.”
“No.”
“Oh, yes, you crazy bastard. If you want Lotti Roemer's body and Walther Roemer, you're going to have to give us this. Otherwise just go ahead and pull the fucking pin!”
Whalpol threw the microphone down in disgust. He felt dirty. He couldn't help thinking of Sarah Razmarah. Sherif may have killed her, but he himself had led her to Germany to her death.
At the back of the truck he passed Habash's instructions to the ambulance driver. “Just get it over with.”
“Yes,
mein Herr,
”the driver said. He drove off toward the break in the barricade.
mein Herr,
”the driver said. He drove off toward the break in the barricade.
Whalpol watched through binoculars. The ambulance drove slowly through the barricade and swung around to a halt about fifty meters from the gate. The driver and the medic opened the rear doors and pulled out a wheeled stretcher, on which Lotti Roemer's body was
strapped, and rolled it clear. Finally the medic pulled the shroud back, exposing the dead man's head.
strapped, and rolled it clear. Finally the medic pulled the shroud back, exposing the dead man's head.
They drove away in the ambulance, leaving the body lying out in the open.
A technician called from the truck. “Colonel Habash, sir. They say for us to keep our heads down, they're going to open fire.”
“God in heaven.” Whalpol brought the binoculars up to his eyes.
The night air was shattered by gunfire from the roofline of the R&D building.
The body came alive, dancing and jerking as bullets slammed into it. The wheeled stretcher tipped over, but still the firing went on and on.
Whalpol lowered his binoculars as he tried to control his nausea.
LEILA KAHLED HID in the woods near the KwU van from which she'd just stolen the radiation suit. She had started up toward the ponds when she heard voices. Plant engineer Trautman and two technicians emerged from the woods and crossed the grassy slope to the van. She had also stolen a police hand radio from the administration building and monitored the exchange between Whalpol and Colonel Habash.
Whalpol's lie about Walther being wounded was understandable. Habash's demand that Lotti Roemer's body be placed out in full view was insane.
Sounds of gunfire drifted over the hill on the light breeze. The firing went on for a long time, then stopped just as abruptly as it had begun.
Leila's heart hammered. The radio was silent, but she knew what had happened. Allah guide her, this was all insane.
Things her father had said and done in the months before they'd come here on this project made sense now.
He had been adamantly against the reactor at first, but suddenly he had reversed himself and insisted that he be included.
He had been adamantly against the reactor at first, but suddenly he had reversed himself and insisted that he be included.
It came to her, finally, that her father had planned this very operation all along. But why? Even crazy people have reasons for what they do.
Trautman and the others drove off in the van.
Leila picked up the bulky radiation suit and the walkie-talkie and headed up the hill toward the holding ponds. At the fence, she wrapped the walkie-talkie in the radiation suit and heaved the bundle over. The oxygen pack went next.
She took off her coat and, holding it under her arm, scrambled up the fence. At the top she laid the coat on top of the razor wire, then climbed over it and dropped down the other side.
She crouched. There were no alarms. She was alone here.
Scooping up the suit and gear, she hurried across the top of the earthwork dam to the ladder, where again she stopped a moment to listen. They probably were looking for her. If Trautman spotted her car a few hundred meters up the Autobahn, they might put two and two together and try to stop her. But she would be inside by then.
She pulled on the radiation suit, the walkie-talkie inside. She opened the air supply control and pulled on the hood, sealing it.
She carefully climbed down the ladder and maneuvered into the pipe. A narrow trickle of water dribbled over the edge down into the pond. She crouched just within the pipe, staring into the impenetrable darkness. She wasn't particularly claustrophobic, but she did not relish the idea of burying herself so far underground in such a narrow passageway.
Getting a tight grip on herself, she started forward, her hands touching the sides of the pipe for guidance. Quickly she was in blackness, and she had to force down a rising panic as she hurried faster and faster.
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