The Apocalypse Watch

  “Oh, they’re fine, except that everything they say seems to end with an exclamation mark.”

  “It’s the language, dismiss it. You heard the colonel, how can I reach Harry?”

  “He’s at the Gloucester, under the name of Wendell Moss.”

  “I’ll make the arrangements. Stay where you are and try to remain calm.”

  “That’s not terribly easy. I’m in this mess but I’m also outside of it. I can’t call the shots, and that bothers me.”

  “You’re not in a position to ‘call any shots,’ my dear. The colonel and I are, and we will act in your best interests, in all our best interests, believe me.”

  “Again, I have to, and thanks for the ‘my dear.’ A touch of warmth is appreciated right now. It’s cold out here.”

  “I give it freely. As you do with the word lady that you applied to your mother, who is prettier and less cotter-whatever than I am. We are now en famille, for few families could be closer than we are, whether we like it or not.”

  “You know, I kind of wish you were here.”

  “You shouldn’t. I’d be a dreadful disappointment, Officer Latham.”

  Far below in the embassy’s pristine white cellars, a white-coated member of Team C, the afternoon shift, snapped off the override switch that taped everything spoken over every telephone in the embassy; the scramblers did not affect the in-house calls, a fact even the ambassador was not aware of—orders from Washington. The interceptor looked at the clock on the wall; it was seven minutes to four o’clock, seven minutes to the end of his shift, seven minutes to retrieve the tape and surreptitiously replace it with a blank. He could do it. He had to do it. Sieg Heil!

  9

  Patient No. 28

  Harry J. Latham, American. CIA Case Officer.

  Undercover.

  Code Name: Sting

  Operation Terminated: May 14, 5:30 P.M.

  “Escape.”

  Current Status: Day 6, post procedure.

  Estimated time span remaining: 3 days minimum,

  6 days maximum.

  Dr. Gerhardt Kroeger studied the computer screen in his new offices on the outskirts of Mettmach. A complete clinic was being built deep in the forests of Vaclabruck; until it was finished he could continue his research but, unfortunately, without human experimentation. Still, there was enough to do in terms of unexplored microsurgery enhanced by the newest laser techniques to occupy him, but currently the progress of Patient No. 28, one Harry Latham, was as vital as anything else. The initial report from London was exhilarating. The subject had responded to interrogation under computerized electronic impulses. Excellent!

  Harry Latham replaced the phone in his room at London’s Gloucester hotel. A rush of warmth spread over him, sweet memories of things past, hours of comfort and delight in a world that had gone mad. He was a confirmed bachelor, realizing that it was too late to share or impose his likes and dislikes with, or on, another person. But if ever there was a woman who could negate this conclusion, it was Frederik de Vries’s wife, Karin. Freddie de V had been the finest runner under his control in the Cold War years, but Harry had spotted his flaw, the flaw that made him extraordinary. Simply put, it was hatred—unmitigated, passionate hatred. Latham had tried constantly to impose a cold neutrality on De Vries’s emotions, warning over and over again that his inner self would explode one day and betray him. It was a useless plea, for Freddie was a demonic romantic, riding the blinding white crest of the wave, not understanding the power beneath, preferring the shining armor of a surfing Siegfried to the force of an unseen Neptune below.

  His wife, Karin, understood. How often would she and Harry talk in Amsterdam, alone, while Freddie went out playing the outrageous role of a diamond merchant, gulling players of the darkest arts of espionage until they opened up to him … temporarily. That very image ultimately destroyed him, for his hatred led him to one more kill he shouldn’t have made.

  It was the end of the minor legend that was Freddie de V. Harry had tried to comfort Karin, but she was beyond consolation. She knew too well what had led to his death, and she swore she would operate differently.

  “Forget it!” Harry had yelled. “You’re not going to make any difference, can’t you understand that?”

  “No, I can’t,” she had replied. “To do nothing is to admit that Freddie meant nothing. Can’t you understand that, my dear Harry?”

  He had no answer then. His only impulse was to take this woman, this intellectual companion he felt so deeply for, into his arms and love her. But it was not the time, nor, perhaps, would it ever be. She had lived with her dead Freddie, loved her dead Freddie. Harry Latham had been that man’s superior, but he was not his equal.

  And now, nearly five years later, she had come back into his life from Paris. Even more remarkably, as the guardian of his brother, Drew, who was marked for execution! Jesus Christ … no, he had to impose his legendary control on himself. Maybe it was the ache in his head that seemed to grow stronger, that allowed his frustration to surface when normally it wouldn’t. Regardless, he would fly to Paris in the morning on a diplomatic jet to a private field at De Gaulle Airport, and be met by Karin de Vries in an unmarked embassy vehicle.

  He wondered what he would say to her. Would he be foolish enough, when he saw her, to say things he shouldn’t say? It didn’t much matter.… The ache in his head was pulsating. He walked into the bathroom, turned on the tap, and took two more aspirin. Glancing at himself in the mirror, he abruptly looked a second time. A pale rash was developing above his left temple, partially obscured by his hairline. His nervous system was making its mark literally. It would go away with a mild antibiotic or a few days of diminished tension; perhaps the sight of Karin de Vries would hasten its disappearance.

  There was a knock on the suite’s door, probably a maid or a steward looking after his needs; it was early evening, and such were the courtesies of the better London hotels. Early evening, he mused, walking out into the sitting room. Where had the day gone? Gone? Wasted was the better word, for he had spent ten hours being interrogated by his tribunal. Ad nauseum, they had questioned him about the information he had brought out of the Brüderschaft valley rather than accepting it and setting the machinery in motion. To make matters even more aggravating, the three-man panel was augmented by several senior intelligence officers from the U.K., the U.S., and France, all querulous, argumentative, and arrogant. Wasn’t it conceivable that he had been fed disinformation, erroneous data that could easily be denied on the outside possibility that Alexander Lassiter was a double agent? Of course it was conceivable! he had said. Disinformation, misinformation, human or computer error, wishful thinking, fantasizing—anything was possible! It was their job to confirm or deny, not his. His work was finished; he had delivered the material, it was their function to evaluate it.

  Harry reached the door and spoke. “Who is it?”

  “A new old friend, Sting,” came the reply from the corridor.

  Catbird! thought Latham, instantly freezing his reaction. The Catbird no one at the Agency had ever heard of. Harry welcomed this strange intruder; he had been too worn out, too wasted to think clearly last night when the CIA impostor had paid him a visit. “Just a moment,” he said in a louder voice. “I’m dripping wet from a shower, I’ll go put on a robe.” Latham ran first to the bathroom, threw handfuls of water over his hair and face, then dashed into the bedroom, removing his trousers, shoes, socks, and shirt, and grabbed the hotel bathrobe from the closet. He stopped briefly, looking down at the bedside table; he opened the top drawer and pulled out the small automatic supplied by the embassy and shoved it into the terry-cloth pocket. He returned to the door and opened it. “Catbird, if I remember correctly,” he said, admitting the pale, gray-faced man wearing steel-rimmed glasses.

  “Oh, that,” remarked the visitor, smiling pleasantly. “It was a harmless ruse.”

  “A trick? What do you mean? What for?”

  “Washington told me you were p
robably exhausted, more out of the picture than in it, so I decided to cover myself in case you were hyper and felt the need to make phone calls. D.C. doesn’t want my participation known at this point. Later, of course, but not now.”

  “So you’re not Catbird—”

  “I knew that if I used the code name Sting, you’d let me in,” the man interrupted. “May I sit down? I’ll only be a few minutes.”

  “Certainly,” replied a bewildered Harry, gesturing aimlessly toward the couch and several chairs. The visitor chose the center of the couch as Latham sat in an armchair directly across, a coffee table between them. “Why doesn’t Washington want your presence—your participation—known?”

  “You’re certainly much more alert than you were last evening,” said the stranger, again pleasantly. “Heaven knows you weren’t traumatic, but you definitely weren’t yourself.”

  “I was pretty tired—”

  “Tired?” The visitor raised both his voice and his eyebrows. “My dear fellow, you practically passed out as we talked. At one point I had to grab your arm to keep you from falling. Don’t you remember, I said I’d come back when you were rested?”

  “Yes, I vaguely remember, but please answer my question, and while you’re at it, show me some identification. Why does Washington want you to be a ghost? I’d think the opposite would be the case.”

  “Quite simply, because we don’t know who’s really secure and who isn’t.” The man removed first his pocket watch, placing it on the table, and then a black plastic ID case; he kept it closed and handed it across the coffee table to Latham. “I’m timing myself so not to wear you out. Orders again.”

  Fingering the small case, Harry had difficulty opening it. “Where’s the clasp?” he asked as his visitor held up the pocket watch and pressed the crown. “I can’t find the—” Latham stopped. His eyes grew unfocused, the pupils dilated; he blinked briefly but repeatedly, then his face sagged, the tense muscles turning flaccid.

  “Hello, Alex,” said the visitor sharply. “It’s your old sawbones, Gerhardt. How are you, my friend?”

  “Fine, Dr. Straightface, it’s good to hear from you.”

  “Our telephone connection’s better this evening, isn’t it?”

  “Telephone? I guess so.”

  “Did everything go well today at the embassy?”

  “Hell, no! Those idiots kept asking questions they should find the answers for, not me.”

  “Yes, I understand. Men in that other business of yours—the one we never mention—protect themselves at all costs, don’t they?”

  “It’s in every question they ask, every word they say. Frankly, it’s deplorable.”

  “I’m sure it is. So what are your plans, what have the idiots allowed you to do?”

  “I’m flying to Paris in the morning. I’ll see my brother, and also someone I’m very fond of, Gerhardt. The widow of a man I worked with covering East Berlin. I’m quite excited about seeing her again. She’ll meet me at the airport, the diplomatic complex, in an embassy car.”

  “Your brother can’t meet you, Alex?”

  “No.… Wait! Alex’s brother?”

  “Never mind,” said the gray-faced visitor quickly. “The brother you speak of, where is he?”

  “It’s off the books. They tried to kill him.”

  “Who tried to kill him?”

  “You know. They did … we did.”

  “Tomorrow morning, the diplomatic complex. That’s De Gaulle airport, right?”

  “Yes. Our ETA is ten o’clock.”

  “Fine, Alex. Have a splendid reunion with your brother and the woman you find so attractive.”

  “Oh, it’s more than her looks, Gerhardt. She’s extraordinarily intelligent, a scholar actually.”

  “I’m sure she is, for my friend Lassiter is a deep man with many facets. We’ll talk again, Alex.”

  “Where are you going, where are you?”

  “They’re beeping me for the O.R. I have to operate.”

  “Yes, of course. You’ll call again?”

  “Certainly.” The visitor wearing steel-rimmed glasses leaned forward over the edge of the coffee table; he continued quietly, firmly, staring into Latham’s neutral eyes. “Remember, old friend, respect the wishes of your guest from Washington. He’s under orders. Forget his name, which you just read on his identification. It’s authentic, that’s all you really care about.”

  “Sure. Orders are orders, even when they’re stupid.”

  Half rising, the “guest” reached over and took the ID case out of Harry’s limp left hand. He opened it, sat back down on the couch, and picked up the pocket watch from the small, low table. He pressed the crown, holding it in place until he saw Latham’s eyes coming back into focus, saw him blinking, suddenly aware of his surroundings, his face again firm, the muscles of his chin taut. “There,” said the visitor, loudly snapping the ID case shut, “so now that you know I’m legitimate, photograph and all, just call me Peter.”

  “Yes … authentic. I still don’t understand … Peter. All right, you’re a ghost, but why? Who’s not secure on the tribunal?”

  “Mine not to wonder why or who, I’m just the unseen presence that talks to you.… My word, I think that’s a rhyme.”

  “A bad one, but never mind. How could any of them be questioned?”

  “Maybe they’re not, individually, but others were brought in, weren’t they?”

  “A gaggle of clowns, yes. They didn’t want to examine the names I brought out. They just wanted to clear a lot of them before the microscopes are activated—less work and less chance of stepping on the toes of big feet.”

  “What do you think of the names?”

  “What I think doesn’t matter, Peter. Naturally, a number of them strike me as preposterous, but I was at the source, a trusted confidant until I escaped. I was a major contributor, a believer in their cause, so why would they feed me dirt?”

  “The rumor is that the Nazis, the new Nazis, may have known who you were from the beginning.”

  “That’s not a ‘rumor,’ that’ll be their credo. What the hell would we do, and how often did we do it, when we found a mole or a turnaround who fled to Mother Russia after looting us? Of course we proclaimed how smart we were, how deep-efficient, and how useless was the information stolen from us—when it wasn’t.”

  “It’s a conundrum, isn’t it?”

  “What isn’t in this business? Right now, for my own sanity, if you like, I have to purge Alexander Lassiter from my psyche. I have to be Harry Latham again; my job is finished. Let others take over.”

  “I agree with you, Harry. Also my time’s up. Please, remember my orders. We didn’t meet tonight.… Don’t blame me, blame Washington.”

  The visitor walked up the hallway to the elevators. He took the first one available and descended a single floor, then went down the corridor to his own suite, directly below Latham’s. Inside, on the desk, was an arrangement of electronic equipment. He crossed to it, pressed several buttons rewinding a tape, and confirmed its accuracy. He picked up the telephone and dialed Mettmach, Germany.

  “Wolf’s Lair,” said the quiet voice over the line.

  “It’s Catbird.”

  “Introduce your impediment, please.”

  “At once.” The man who called himself Peter delicately pulled a thin wire out of his equipment, its tip attached to a razor-sharp alligator clamp, and rotated it around the telephone cord until there was a momentary burst of static on the line. “The metrometer indicates clearance, how so there?”

  “Clear. Go ahead.”

  “Catbird, if I remember correctly,” began the tape recording. The resident below Harry Latham’s suite played it to the finish. “I agree with you, Harry.… Don’t blame me, blame Washington.”

  “What’s your assessment?” asked Latham’s visitor.

  “It’s dangerous,” said Gerhardt Kroeger in Germany. “Like most deep-cover operatives, he’s subconsciously crossing over from one id
entity to another. It’s in his own words: ‘I have to purge Alexander Lassiter from my psyche.’ He was Lassiter too long, and he’s fighting back to be himself. It’s not an uncommon occurrence, the dual persona becoming a dual personality.”

  “He’s accomplished what you wanted him to do in a matter of two days. The list itself was sufficient to put our enemies into a collective state of shock. They don’t want to believe his information, they’re very vocal about that, but they’re also frightened to deny it. I can take him out with a single shot in the hallway. Shall I?”

  “It would lend credence to the list of names, but no, not yet. His brother is closing in on the trail of that senile tramp, Jodelle, and it could be catastrophic for us. As much as it tortures me not to follow up on my patient’s progress, the movement comes first and I must make the sacrifice. Alexander Lassiter will lead us to the other interfering Latham. Kill them both.”

  “It won’t be difficult. We have Lassiter’s itinerary.”

  “Follow it, follow them, and leave nothing but corpses. Jodelle’s resurrected son, the actor, will be next, then all traces to the Loire Valley will be dust, as it is with the Hausruck.”

  Harry Latham and Karin de Vries held each other as close brothers and sisters do after having been parted for a very long time. Their chatter, at first, was garbled, each excitedly telling the other how marvelous it was to be together again. Karin then clutched his arm, steering them both toward the diplomatic lounge, where Harry was processed rapidly, then out to the restricted parking area thick with uniformed guards, a number holding the leashes of various dogs trained to ferret out such items as narcotics and explosive devices. The car was a nondescript black Renault, indistinguishable from several thousand others on the streets of Paris. De Vries climbed behind the wheel while Harry got into the passenger seat.

  “We don’t rate a driver?” asked Latham.

  “Let’s say we’re not permitted to have one,” replied Karin. “Your brother is under the protection of the Antinayous, remember them?”

  “Most emphatically—from the other night to be precise; they were waiting for me. I pretended not to understand a word my contact said in the truck because it would have involved an explanation that could lead to Freddie, and by extension, you.”