The Apocalypse Watch (69 page)

“Berlin … ‘Heracles’ …? Who
are
you?”

“I don’t like repeating myself. I am a Sonnenkind, the
Führer
of the Sonnenkinder in America, and I demand respect from you. I have information you must be given.”

“Where are you?”

“Ten meters from your front door.”

“
Mein Gott!
I’ve heard nothing of this!”

“There wasn’t time; the usual channels could not be used, for you’ve been compromised.”

“I cannot
believe
this!”

“Believe, or I’ll use this phone to reach Berlin, even Bonn, and other instructions will be issued that will remove Heracles from his post. Come down and meet me within thirty seconds or I call Berlin.”

“No! Wait! I’m coming!”

Well before a minute had passed, the lights on the upper floors were turned on, followed by the lights below. The front door opened and the Reverend Wilhelm Koenig, in pajamas and draped in a blue shawl, appeared. Drew studied him from the shadows of the lawn. He was, indeed, a small man, but with massive shoulders and thick legs, not unlike a bull mastiff, the legs severely bowed. And like a huge bulldog, his large, pinched face was set in defiance, as if prepared to attack.

Latham walked out of the darkness of the lawn into the light of the entrance. “Please, come here, Heracles. We’ll talk outside.”

“Why do you not come in? There’s a chill in the air; it’s far more comfortable inside.”

“I’m not cold at all,” said Drew. “As a matter of fact, it’s rather warm and humid.”

“Then our air-conditioning would be preferable, would it not?”

“My instructions were not to have any conversations within your rectory; the assumption was obvious.”

“That I’d tape whatever we said, incriminating
myself
?” cried Koenig in a harsh whisper, stepping outside. “Are you
verrückt
?”

“Another more reasonable assumption could be made.”

“Such as?”

“The house is wired by the French.”

“Impossible! We have devices perpetually in operation that would reveal any invasion.”

“New technology is born every day, Reverend. Come on, humor our superiors in Berlin even if they’re wrong. Frankly, we both must.”

“Very well.” Koenig started to walk down the single porch step, when Drew stopped him.

“Hold it.”

“What?”

“Turn off the lights and close the door. Neither of us wants a cruising police car to stop, do we?”

“You have a point.”

“Who else is in the house?”

“My assistant, whose rooms are in the attic, and my two hounds who remain in the kitchen until I summon them.”

“Can you turn off the upstairs lights from down there?”

“The hallway, yes, not the bedroom.”

“Turn them off too.”

“You’re excessively cautious, Herr Sonnenkind.”

“A product of my training, Herr Demeter.”

The minister went inside; seconds later the main lights, both upstairs and downstairs, were extinguished, when suddenly Koenig shouted, “
Hunde! Aufrug!
” When the
neo leader returned to the darkened doorway, the moonlight revealed two additional figures, one on either side of him. They were low to the ground, large-headed, barrel-chested, and each poised on four slightly bowed legs. The reverend’s dogs were not unlike the reverend himself; they were pit bulls. “These are my friends, Donner and Blitzen; the parishioners’ children like the names. They are completely harmless unless I give them a specific command, which, of course, I cannot repeat because they would tear you to pieces.”

“Berlin wouldn’t like that.”

“Then don’t give me any reason to use it,” continued Koenig, walking out on the lawn, his guards waddling beside him. “And please, no comments about owners looking like their pets, or vice versa. I hear that all the time.”

“I can’t imagine why. You’re somewhat taller.”

“You’re not amusing, Sonnenkind,” said the Nazi, looking up at Drew and throwing his wide blue shawl over his shoulder, concealing his left hand. It was not difficult to know what Koenig held under the cloth. “What is this information from Berlin? I’ll reconfirm it, of course.”

“Not from this house, you won’t,” contradicted Latham firmly. “Go down the street, or even better, into another district, and call all you want to, but not from here. You’re in enough trouble, don’t compound it. That’s a bit of friendly advice.”

“They’re
serious
, then? They believe that with all of my precautions, I am compromised?”

“They certainly do, Heracles.”

“On what
basis
?”

“First, they want to know if you have the woman.”

“De Vries?”

“I think that was the name, I’m not sure; the connection was terrible. I’m to reach Berlin within the hour.”

“How would they even know about her? We haven’t filed our report! We’re waiting for results.”

“I assume they have moles in French intelligence, the Sûreté, organizations like that.… Look, Koenig, I don’t care to know anything that’s not in my orbit, I have enough problems of my own back in the States. Just give
me the answers I can relay to our superiors. Have you got whoever this woman is?”

“Of course we do.”

“You haven’t killed her.” A statement, not a question.

“Not yet. In a few hours we will if she doesn’t produce results. We’ll drop her body off at the steps of the American Embassy.”

“What results? And don’t give me a bunch of complicated facts—just sketch it out so they’ll be satisfied. Believe me, it’s in your interest.”

“All right. At the first light our unit will reach her lover, this Latham, telling him that if he ever wants to see her alive, he’ll come to a rendezvous, a park or a monument, someplace where several of our expert snipers can conceal themselves. When he arrives, a barrage of gunfire will kill them both.”

“Where is this rendezvous?”

“That’s the unit’s decision, not mine. I have no idea.”

“Where is she being held now?”

“Why would that concern Berlin?” The neo-Nazi suddenly squinted, staring questioningly at Drew. “They’ve never wanted such tactical information before.”

“How the hell do
I
know?” At the raising of his voice, the deadly pit bulls growled. “I’m simply repeating what they told me to ask!” Latham, in his anxiety, could feel the perspiration rolling down his face.
Control
, goddammit,
control!
Only a few more moments!

“All right. Why not?” said the short pit bull on two legs. “What’s in motion can’t be derailed by men who are five hundred miles away. She’s in a flat on the rue Lacoste, number twenty-three.”

“What flat?”

“The unit never told me. It was for rent and they don’t even have a telephone. Naturally, by this morning they’ll disappear, and a landlord will have several months’ rent and no tenants.”

Step one
, thought Drew.
Step two
was to get rid of the goddamn dogs and have Koenig to himself. “That seems to me all that Berlin can demand,” he said.

“Now, what is the information I’m to be given,” asked the Lutheran neo.

“Orders more than information,” said Latham. “You’re to temporarily close down all activities, neither issuing nor accepting instructions from anyone. When the time is right, Berlin will reach you and tell you to resume operations. Furthermore, should you care to confirm your orders from me, do so at the lowest levels, preferably through Spain or Portugal.”

“This is
insane
!” choked the diminutive prelate as the two dogs growled and snapped their teeth simultaneously. “
Halten!
” he yelled, quieting the animals. “I am the most secure man in France!”

“They told me to tell you that’s what someone called André thought, and now he’s finished.”

“
André?
”

“You heard me—and I don’t know who he is or what it means.”

“
Mein Gott
. André!” The Nazi’s voice grew weak, confusion and fear in his expression. “He was so
getarnt
!”

“Sorry, I’m not with you, the cells in America don’t want all of us to know German. They figured it was a trip point.”

“He was beyond unearthing.”

“I guess he wasn’t. Berlin said something about his going back to Strasbourg, wherever the hell that is.”

“
Strasbourg?
Then you
know
.”

“Not a damn thing, and I don’t want to. I just want to get to Heathrow and a plane to Chicago.”

“What am I to
do
?”

“I told you before, Heracles. In the morning you call your relays in Spain or Portugal—from a phone far away from here—confirm my orders, and do as Berlin says. How much clearer can I
be
?”

“Everything is so confusing—”

“Confusing, hell,” said Latham, starting to take Koenig’s elbow, when the pit bulls snarled. “Come on, tell your hounds to get inside and I’ll follow you. If nothing else, you owe me a drink.”

“Oh, certainly.…
Rein
,” ordered Koenig as the two
pit bulls raced through the open door. “There we are, Herr Sonnenkind, come inside.”

“Not yet,” said Drew, suddenly slamming the door closed and yanking the neo outside, stripping the blue shawl off his shoulders, revealing the small automatic in his left hand. Before the confused Koenig could react, Latham gripped the weapon, twisting it violently counter-clockwise, expecting either the Nazi’s wrist to snap or the gun to fall free; it loosened as Koenig’s fingers spread in agony. Drew grabbed it and flung it into the dark grass.

What followed was nothing short of a life-and-death struggle between two human animals, pit bulls, perhaps, each possessing an agenda that consumed him, one ideological, the other intensely personal. Koenig was a hissing, attacking cat, thrusts and claws deadly; Latham was the larger, snarling wolf, fangs bared, constantly lunging for the throat—in the present case, any appendage he could grab on to, hold, and immobilize. In the end, the wolf’s size and marginally superior strength prevailed. Both animals, bloodied and exhausted, knew who had won the battle. Koenig lay on the ground, one arm broken, the other sprained, the thigh muscles of both legs partially paralyzed. Latham, his hands scraped and bleeding, his chest and stomach pummeled almost to the point of his vomiting, stood over the Nazi and spat in the direction of his face.

Drew knelt down, pulling the length of coiled cord provided by Hugo out of his belt, and proceeded to tie up the neo leader, legs and arms connected behind Koenig’s spine; with each struggle the lines grew tighter. Finally, Latham tore the blue shawl in strips, as he had done with the sheets at the Normandie hotel, and gagged the ersatz minister of God. Glancing at his watch, he dragged Koenig into the bushes, chopped him into unconsciousness, yanked out his telephone, and dialed Stanley Witkowski.

“Y
ou son of a
bitch
!” roared the colonel. “Moreau wants your ass in front of a firing squad, and I can’t say as I blame him one bit!”

“His two men got loose, then?”

“What did you think you were
doing
? What
are
you doing?”

“If you’ll calm down for a moment or two, I’ll fill you in.”

“Me calm down? Oh, I’ve got a
lot
to be calm about. Courtland’s to be ordered to the Quai d’Orsay in the morning to take the whacks for you; you’re being declared persona non grata and thrown out of the country; a formal protest is being lodged against me by a foreign government, and you tell me to be
calm
?”

“Moreau’s behind all this?”

“It’s not Tinker Bell.”

“Then we can control it.”

“Are you
listening
to me? You assaulted two Deuxième agents, blindsided them, and held them hostage by roping them up without communication for hours, therefore disrupting a major
French
intelligence investigation!”

“Yes, but, Stanley, I made progress, the kind of progress Moreau wants more than anything else.”

“What …?”

“Send a marine unit out to a Lutheran church in Neuilly-sur-Seine.” Latham gave Witkowski the address and described the bound Koenig in the bushes. “He’s the high honcho of the neo movement in Paris, higher, I think, than Strasbourg, at least his cover’s better.”

“How did you find him?”

“There’s no time for that now. Call Moreau and have
the marines take Koenig to the Deuxième Bureau. Tell Claude from me it’s a bona fide.”

“He’ll want more than a roughed-up Lutheran minister.
Jesus
, you could be a nut and he’d be drummed out of his job, facing all kinds of lawsuits!”

“No way. Koenig’s code name is Heracles, something out of mythology.”

“Greek mythology?” interrupted the colonel. “Heracles is a son of Zeus, known for feats of strength.”

“That’s nice,” said Drew pleasantly. “Now, get things moving, which shouldn’t take you more than a minute or two. Then I want you to meet me—”

“Meet you? I may blow your brains out!”

“Postpone it, Stanley. I know where they’ve got Karin.”

“
What?
”

“Twenty-three rue Lacoste, flat unknown, but just recently rented.”

“You sprung this from the padre?”

“Actually, it wasn’t difficult. He was frightened.”

“He was what …?”

“No
time
, Stosh! It’s got to be just you and me. If they even sense a conversion, or see a strange car or two parking on the street at this hour, they’ll kill her. They intend to do just that in an hour or so anyway if they don’t reach me and pull me out.”

“I’ll meet you a hundred yards east of the building, between streetlights, the darkest storefront or alley.”

“Thank you, Stanley, I mean that. I know when a solo operation has to be added to, and there’s no one better than you.”

“I don’t have a choice. There’s no way you could come up with a code like Heracles unless it was real.”

Karin de Vries sat in the straight chair, her hands tied behind her, a slender, broad-shouldered neo killer sitting in front of her, his legs straddling the seat of a wooden kitchen chair, his arms across the back, a pistol casually in his right hand, a pistol with a large cylinder attached to the barrel. A silencer.