The Apocalypse Watch (22 page)

He then pulled the sobbing Karin out from under the booth and, wrapping her hand in a cloth napkin, propelled her away from the terrible scene. He shouted to the management, who had fled into the kitchen, to call the police. He would make the proper inquiries later. It was no time to mourn the brother he loved, nor any moment to stare in remembrance at his corpse. He had to get Karin de Vries to a doctor, and then go back to work. The Brotherhood had to be destroyed, they
had
to be, if it took him the rest of his life, or if it
took
his life. It was a commitment he swore before any and all the gods there might be.

“You
can’t
go to your office, don’t you understand that?” said Karin, sitting on a gurney in the surgical annex of the doctor on the embassy’s secure listing. “The word will go out and you’re a dead man!”

“Then my office has to be moved to wherever I am,” said Drew, his voice low, insistent. “I need all the resources we have,
everywhere
, and I’m not settling for anything less. The key is a man named Kroeger, Gerhardt Kroeger, and I’ll find the son of a bitch, I’ve got to!
Who
is he?
Where
is he?”

“He’s a doctor, we know that, and he must be German.” De Vries studied the younger Latham brother as she slowly raised and lowered her bandaged right hand
following the doctor’s instructions. “For God’s sake, Drew, let it out.”

“What?” asked Latham sharply, standing beside her and taking his eyes off her wounded hand.

“You’re trying to make believe it didn’t happen, and that doesn’t make sense. You grieve for Harry as I do—undoubtedly more so—but you’re holding it inside, and it’s shattering you. Stop pretending to be so coldly efficient. That was Harry, not you.”

“When I saw what they did to him, I told myself that mourning would come later. It’s on hold and that’s the way it’s going to stay.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?”

“I think so. Your rage can’t be contained. You want revenge, and that comes first.”

“You used a phrase about Harry before, about the way he approached problems, or crises. You called it
sang-froid
, which I understand means calmly or dispassionately.”

“It does.”

“My French is limited, a fact I’m reminded of a lot, but there’s a variation of that phrase—”

“
De sang-froid
—in cold blood,” said Karin, her eyes locked with his.

“Exactly. That’s what Harry was really good at. He approached everything in life, not just calmly or coolly, but coldly—ice cold. I was the only exception; when he looked at me there was a warmth in those looks I rarely saw otherwise.… No, there was one other, our cousin, the one I told you about who died of cancer. She was also special to him, very special. Speaking in the gender sense, could be she was his ‘Rosebud’ until you came along.”

“You refer to Welles’s
Citizen Kane
, of course.”

“Sure, it’s part of our lexicon now. A symbol from the past that has more meaning for the present than a person realizes.”

“I had no idea he had such feelings toward me.”

“Neither did Kane. In his mind’s eye he just saw a thing
he loved as a child, and he never found anything else to take its place. That left only his accomplishments.”

“Harry was like that as a child?”

“Child, young man, and man. A straight-A student with an IQ that was off the charts. Bachelor’s degree, master’s, and Ph.D. before he was twenty-three. He was always driven to be the best there was, and along the way he became fluent in five, or is it six, languages. As I mentioned, he was a piece of work.”

“What an extraordinary life.”

“Hell, I suppose the Freudians would say he was a gifted kid reacting to a distant father—distant geographically as well as emotionally—and a sweet, intuitively bright but nonintellectual mother who was maritally mismatched and decided that being attractive, loving, and gracious was her role in life, so why get into debates she couldn’t win.”

“And you?”

“I guess I inherited a few more of my mother’s genes than Harry did. Beth’s a large woman and was a damn good athlete when she was young. She captained the girls’ track team in college, and if she hadn’t met my father, she might have tried out for the Olympics.”

“You have a very interesting family,” said Karin, once again studying Drew’s face, “and you’re telling me all this for another reason beyond my curiosity, aren’t you?”

“You’re quick, lady—sorry, I’ll try to stop saying that.”

“Don’t bother, I’m beginning to find it rather nice.… What’s the reason?”

“I want you to know me, where I am and where I came from. At least part of your curiosity should be satisfied.”

“Considering your penchant for reticence, that’s an odd thing to say.”

“I realize that. I’m only just putting it together.… Back at the inn, when the firing stopped and the horrible thing was over, I found myself in a panic, rummaging through Harry’s pockets, inches from what was left of his skull, his destroyed face, every second hating myself, as though I were committing some despicable act. The strange thing was, I didn’t know
why
, I just knew I had to
do it. I was being ordered to and I had to obey that order despite the fact that I knew it wouldn’t make any difference, wouldn’t bring him back.”

“You were protecting your brother in death as you would in life,” said De Vries. “There’s nothing strange in that. You were shielding his name—”

“I think I told myself that,” Latham interrupted, “but it doesn’t hold water. With today’s pathology, his identity would be known in a matter of hours … unless his body were taken, quarantined.”

“After you got the name of the doctor from the embassy—”

“From the colonel, in fact,” Drew clarified.

“You called back, asking the doctor for a private telephone. It was a long conversation.”

“Again with Witkowski. He knows whom to reach and how to do these things.”

“What things?”

“Like removing a body and holding it in isolation.”

“Harry?”

“Yes. No one at the scene could have learned who he was after we left. That’s when I put it together, somewhere between our getting out of there and my second call to the colonel.
Harry
was giving me those orders, he was telling me what to do.”

“Please be clearer.”

“I’m to become him, I’m taking his place.
I’m
Harry Latham.”

C
olonel Stanley Witkowski moved quickly, calling in old debts from the Cold War years. He reached a deputy chief of the Paris Sûreté, a former intelligence officer who had headed up the French garrison in Berlin, and with whom a frustrated Witkowski, then a major in the U.S. Army G-2, had seen fit to go around regulations and exchange information. (“I thought we were on the same side, Senator!”) As a result, the colonel had under his sole control not only the body of the slain Harry Latham, but also those of the two assassins. All three were stored under fictitious names in the morgue on the rue Fontenay. Further, in the interest of both countries, a fact readily accepted by the Sûreté deputy, a blackout was put on the terrorist act in the pursuit of additional information.

For Witkowski understood what Drew Latham only half perceived. The removal of his brother’s body would create partial confusion, but along with the blackout, the disappearance of the killers made it total.

In a hotel room at Orly, prepared to take the three-thirty
P.M
. flight to Munich, the man in the steel-rimmed glasses paced nervously in front of a window, erratically distracted by the planes departing from and arriving at the field. The muted thunder of the jets served only to heighten his anxiety. He kept glaring at the telephone, furious that it did not ring, delivering him the news that would justify his return to Munich, his mission completed. That the assignment could fail was unthinkable. He had reached the Paris branch of the Blitzkrieger, the elite killers of the Brüderschaft, so highly trained and skilled, so
superior in the deadly crafts, they numbered less than two hundred instantly mobile predators operating in Europe, South America, and the United States. Catbird had been officially informed that in the four years since they had been sent to their posts, only three had been taken, two preferring their own deaths to interrogation and one killed in Paris in the line of duty. No details were ever revealed; regarding the Blitzkrieger, secrecy was absolute. Even Catbird had to appeal to the second highest leader of the Brotherhood, the tempestuous General von Schnabe, to be permitted to enlist these elite assassins.

So why didn’t the phone ring? Why the delay? The lethal surveillance had been in operation since the arrival of Harry Latham at 10:28 in the morning at De Gaulle airport and his departure by car at eleven o’clock. It was now past one-thirty in the afternoon! Catbird couldn’t stand the lack of communication; he crossed to the bedside telephone and dialed the Blitzkrieger number.

“Avignon Warehouses,” said the female voice on the line in French. “How may I direct your call?”

“Frozen foods division, if you please. Monsieur Giroux.”

“I’m afraid his line is busy.”

“I’ll wait precisely thirty seconds, and if he’s not free, I’ll cancel my order.”

“I see.… That won’t be necessary, sir, I can ring him now.”

“Catbird?” asked a male voice.

“At least I used the right words. What the hell is going on? Why haven’t you
called
?”

“Because there’s nothing to report.”

“That’s ridiculous! It’s been over three hours!”

“We’re as disturbed as you are, so don’t raise your voice to me. Our last contact was an hour and twelve minutes ago; everything was on schedule. Our two men were following Latham in a Renault driven by a woman. Their last words were ‘Everything’s under control, the mission will be carried out shortly.’ ”

“That was
it
? An
hour
ago?”

“Yes.”

“Nothing
else
?”

“No. That was the last transmission.”

“Well, where are they?”

“We wish we knew.”

“Where were they
going
?”

“North out of Paris, specifics weren’t mentioned.”

“Why
not
?”

“With frequency traffic, it would be stupid. Besides, those two are a prime unit, they’ve never failed.”

“Is it possible they failed today?”

“It’s extremely unlikely.”

“Extremely unlikely is hardly an unequivocal answer. Have you any idea how vital this assignment is?”

“All our assignments are vital, or else they would not be directed to us. May I remind you, we are the solution of last resorts.”

“What can I say to Von Schnabe?”

“Please, Catbird, at this point, what can
we
say to him?” said the leader of the Paris branch of the Blitzkrieger, hanging up the phone.

Thirty minutes passed and the man called Catbird could contain himself no longer. He dialed a number deep in the forests of Vaclabruck, Germany.

“This is information I do not care to hear,” said General Ulrich von Schnabe, the words delivered through a frozen mist. “The targets were to be eliminated at the earliest opportunity. I approved Dr. Kroeger’s orders, for you, yourself, told the doctor that there would be no difficulty, as you had the itinerary. On that basis alone I permitted you to contact the Blitzkrieger.”

“What can I say,
Herr General
? There is simply no word, no communication. Nothing.”

“Check with our man at the American Embassy. He may have heard something.”

“I have, sir, from public phones, of course. His last intercept simply confirmed that the Latham brother was under the protection of the Antinayous.”

“Those black-loving, Jew-kissing
scum
. No location, naturally.”

“Naturally.”

“Stay in Paris. Stay in touch with our killer unit and keep me informed of any developments.”

“Now you’re the one who’s crazy!” cried Karin de Vries. “They’ve seen you, they
know
you, you can’t possibly be Harry!”

“Sure I can, if they don’t see me again, and they won’t,” said Drew. “I’ll operate in absentia, from one place to another, keeping in touch with you and the colonel because I don’t dare show up at the embassy. As a matter of fact, since we know the embassy’s penetrated—hell, we knew it when Little Adolf showed up as my driver the other night—we might be able to find out who it is, or who they are.”

“Just how?”

“A railroad trap.”

“A what?”

“Like in a row of railroad cars filled with passengers, only one of them holds wild dogs.”

“
Please
—”

“I’ll call you
as
Harry three or four times asking for papers from my dead brother Drew’s files, naming one of Witkowski’s couriers to meet me at a given time and place—a crowded place. You process the requests and I’ll be wherever it is, but not where anybody can see me. If a legitimate courier shows up—I know them all—and he’s not followed, fine. I’ll throw away whatever you send. Then later I’ll call again, with another request, telling you it’s urgent, I’m on to something. That’s your cue to hang up and say nothing, relay nothing.”

“And if anyone shows up, you’ll know he’s a neo, and that my phone was tapped from inside,” Karin interrupted.

“Exactly. If the circumstances are right, maybe I’ll be able to take him and turn him over to our chemists.”

“Suppose there’s more than one?”

“I said
if
. I’m not about to challenge a crowd of swastikas.”

“To use your own technique, I see a very large ‘gap,’ as
you called it. Why would Harry Latham remain here in Paris?”

“Because he
is
Harry Latham. Tenacious to a fault, unrelenting in his pursuits, all the things that Harry was with the added intensely personal burden of his younger brother having been murdered here in Paris.”

“Certainly a convincing motive,” agreed De Vries. “Yours actually.… But how will you get the news out? Isn’t that a problem?”

“It’s touchy,” said Drew, nodding his head and frowning. “Primarily because the Agency will throw up its collective hands and cry foul. However, it’ll be too late if we’re off and running, and I have an idea the colonel might come up with something. I’m meeting him later at a café in Montmartre.”