The Apocalypse Watch

  “Most obfuscational,” said Moreau quietly. “Has anyone followed up on where he is now?”

  “Only hearsay, as you’ll read. Several former colleagues who’ve heard from him, none less than four years ago, say he opened a general practice under a Swedish name, north of Göteborg.”

  “Who are these ‘former colleagues’?”

  “Their names are in the report. You may reach them yourself, if you wish.”

  “I wish.”

  “Now, Monsieur Moreau,” said the German ambassador, his short, skeletal body leaning back in the chair, “I think it’s time you were clear with me. When we spoke—on a secure line, as you demanded—you implied that one Gerhardt Kroeger, surgeon, could be part of the Nazi movement, but you offered no evidence, to say nothing of proof. Instead, rather outrageously, you said that if my government, through this office, refused to comply with your request to furnish you with a complete dossier on Kroeger, you would complain to the Quai d’Orsay that we were conceivably covering up the identity of a powerful member of the new Nazi core. Again, no evidence, no proof, and once you enter that file into your system, it’s quite possible that an innocent doctor somewhere in Sweden will have his very life in jeopardy, for I have no doubt you’ll find him. There’s your information, Monsieur Moreau. Give me something, if only to assuage my conscience, for, as I say, you will find him.”

  “We have found him, Monsieur l’Ambassadeur. He’s here in Paris, less than twenty blocks away. His mission is to find Harry Latham and kill him. But why he, why a doctor, a surgeon? That’s the question we must answer.”

  Out on the street, Moreau went directly to his Deuxième Bureau vehicle, climbed in, nodded to his driver to proceed, and picked up the embassy telephone from its cradle. He dialed an in-house sterile number. “Jacques?”

  “Yes, Claude?”

  “Run an in-depth trace on a doctor named Traupman, Hans Traupman, a surgeon in Nuremberg.”

  * * *

  The evening was passing slowly, far too slowly for an agitated Drew Latham. The hotel suite was his personal prison; even the recycled air was beginning to become oppressive. He opened a window, immediately shutting it; the Paris night was humid, the air-conditioning preferable. He had spent too long cooped up like the fugitive he was presumed to be. He had to get out as he had yesterday afternoon when he had visited his flat on the rue du Bac, accompanied by his marine escort. It had taken less than an hour, only minutes in the street, but that hour, those minutes, were a brief respite from the suffocating, restricting enclosures of the Antinayous’ Maison Rouge, Witkowski’s place, even Karin’s apartment—no, not Karin’s apartment. That had been a release from something else, something he had been running away from for years, and it was splendid and warm and filled with comfort.

  But now, now he had to feel like a free man again, if only for a while; he had to walk in the streets among people, it was as simple as that, perhaps. He had spoken to Karin two hours earlier while she was still at the embassy, agreeing that in the interests of absolute security, he would not call her in the Madeleine. Certainly not; the last thing he wanted was to make her a fugitive too. She had, however, given him an urgent message from Washington. He was to reach Wesley Sorenson on his very private line, and keep trying until the Cons-Op director answered; and if by six o’clock D.C. time they had not made contact, he was to call Sorenson at his home, regardless of the hour.

  He had tried repeatedly, knowing the number could not be traced, until eleven o’clock in Paris, six o’clock in Washington. Then he had phoned Wes’s home. Mrs. Sorenson had answered; the compleat spook’s wife had said the proper words. “My husband’s expecting a call from our antiques dealer in Paris. If this is he, Mr. Sorenson is tied up until around seven, our time, but if it’s not too inconvenient, please try then, as we don’t have your apartment number. He’s most eager about the tapestry we saw last month.”

  “It hasn’t been sold, madam,” Drew had said. “I’ll call him shortly past midnight, Paris time, seven o’clock yours. It’s the least I can do for such excellent clients.”

  What was so important that Sorenson termed it “urgent”? No matter, there was an hour to waste, and to speculate on a dozen possibilities in the confines of the small hotel suite was more than he could tolerate. Besides, he was wearing the inhibiting uniform that barely allowed him to breathe, his hair was dyed a ridiculous blond, he would wear the glasses Karin had given him, and it was dark out. What could be more secure than the combination of altered appearance and darkness? Finally, he had his thin cellular phone. If Witkowski or anyone with maximum clearance at the embassy needed him in an emergency, they would try that number should they not be able to reach him at the hotel.

  He took the elevator down to the lobby, walked past the concierge’s desk, feeling foolish as fingers touched caps along with such salutations as “mon colonel?” and “Monsieur le Colonel Webster?” until he went through a revolving door and out onto the rue de Castiglione. God, it felt good to be outside, away from his prison walls! He turned right, away from the street lamps, and proceeded down the sidewalk, breathing the air deeply, his stride firm, almost military, he realized, chuckling to himself.

  And then it happened. The phone in his tunic pocket rang, a low, emphatic ring. It so startled him that he fumbled, forgetting the buttons on the army jacket, wanting only the damn noise to stop. At last he ripped the ringing instrument out, pressed the receiver button, and put the phone to his ear. “Yes, what?”

  “This is marine unit W, that’s you, mister! What are you doing outside the hotel?”

  “Getting a little air, do you mind?”

  “You can bet your ass we do, but it’s too late. You’re being followed.”

  “What?”

  “We’ve got a photograph; we can’t be sure, but we think it’s Reynolds, Alan Reynolds from the comm center. We’ve got him in our binoculars, but the light’s not so good, and he’s wearing a hat with his lapels up.”

  “How the hell could he spot me? I’m in uniform and my goddamn hair’s blond!”

  “A uniform can be rented, and blond hair doesn’t mean much when it’s mostly dark out and someone’s wearing an officer’s cap.… Keep walking and laugh a lot when you put the phone back in your pocket. Then turn right into the next narrow street. We’ve studied the area; we’ll get out and be behind you.”

  “For Christ’s sake, stop him, take him! If he’s found me, it’s more than likely he’s zeroed in on Mrs. de Vries’s place!”

  “She’s not our priority, whoever she is. You are, mister.”

  “She’s a big priority with me, Mr. Marine!”

  “Start laughing real loud and put the phone away.”

  “You got it!” Drew, making a fool of himself on the crowded rue de Castiglione, laughed like a howling hyena, replaced the cellular phone in his pocket, and turned right into the first narrow street only yards ahead. However, instead of walking, he broke into a run, racing to the nearest doorfront on the right and whipped around the stone corner out of sight. The street itself, barely more than a double alleyway, was one of those lower Parisian residential areas where the histories were long and the rents short. The only light came from two street lamps, at opposite ends of the thoroughfare; the rest was bathed in dark shadows. Removing his officer’s hat, Latham, inch by inch, peered around the stone. The figure walking cautiously down the narrow street held a gun in his hand, causing Drew to swear silently. He had not thought to carry a weapon—thought, hell, there was no place under the tight-fitting fabric of the uniform to wear one!

  Then, obviously seeing no one, the man with the gun began running toward the lamplight at the other end; it was all Latham had to observe. At the instant the figure came into view, Drew lashed his right foot out, catching the man in the groin, then sprang forward, throwing Alan Reynolds across the wide alleyway into the wall, Latham’s hand gripping the weapon loosened by the traitor’s lack of balance.

  “You son of a bit
ch!” roared Drew, crashing Reynolds into the stone more aggressively than he had ever body-checked an opponent on the ice. “Where do you come from, what do you know? Where does my brother fit in?”

  “You’re not him!” choked the Nazi. “I suspected as much, but they wouldn’t listen to me!”

  “I’m listening, you bastard,” said Latham, the mole’s gun pressed against his forehead. “Talk!”

  “There’s nothing to talk about, Latham, they have my report. You and the De Vries woman, the trap you’ve set.”

  Suddenly Reynolds’s right hand surged up in the shadows to his collar. He squeezed the cloth and bit into the bulging fabric. “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!” shrieked Alan Reynolds with his dying breath.

  The marine unit, designated W, raced down the dark, narrow street, their weapons bared. “Are you all right?” yelled the sergeant in charge.

  “No, I’m not all right!” answered a furious Drew. “How did this son of a bitch pass muster? How did he get by all those high-tech microscopes and the psychiatrists and the researchers who supposedly can pinpoint the date, hour, and minute of an applicant’s conception? It’s all bullshit! This man wasn’t just a neo out for money or a few medals, he was a certifiable fanatic who screamed the Nazi salute as he took his cyanide. He should have been spotted years ago!”

  “Can’t argue with you there,” said the sergeant. “We radioed Colonel Witkowski that we’d spotted him, or thought we had. He told us to do whatever we had to do, shoot him in the legs or the arms, but to bring him in alive.”

  “Unless the Corps issued you powers I don’t think it possesses, that’ll be a tad difficult, Sergeant.”

  “We’ll take the body to the embassy, but first we’re getting you back to the Inter-Continental.”

  “You’d have to drive around several blocks to drop me off. I can walk quicker.”

  “The colonel would fry our asses if we let you do that.”

  “And I’ll fry them if you don’t. I’m not responsible to Witkowski, but if it’ll make you feel better, he’s the first person I’m going to call.”

  Back in his hotel suite, Latham picked up the phone and dialed the colonel’s apartment. “It’s me,” he said.

  “And the next time you tell my people you’ll do what you like because you’re not responsible to me, I’ll dismiss your protection and do my best to steer you into a Nazi assassination unit.”

  “I believe you would.”

  “You can take it to the bank!” confirmed the angry colonel.

  “I had my reasons, Stanley.”

  “What the hell are they?”

  “Karin, to begin with. Reynolds filed a report to the neos that claimed I wasn’t Harry but the other Latham and that Karin was part of the trap.”

  “Pretty goddamned accurate. Did he say what the trap was?”

  “The cyanide cut him off—”

  “Yes, I gathered that from the sergeant, along with your rather strong opinions of our security checks.”

  “I believe I called them bullshit, and that’s exactly what they are.… Get Karin out of her apartment, Stanley. If Reynolds found me, the rue Madeleine isn’t far behind. Get her out!”

  “Any suggestions?”

  “Here at the Inter-Continental, blond wig and all.”

  “That’s about the dumbest thing you could say. If Reynolds found you there, who else did he tell, and who told him?”

  “I’m missing something.”

  “You certainly are. There’s another Alan Reynolds, another mole, at the embassy and he’s as high up as they come. I’m moving you to the Normandie, on the pretext that Colonel Webster is being transferred back to Washington for evaluation.”

  “That’s kind of negative, isn’t it?”

  “Actually, we’ll probably imply that you’re incompetent. The French love to hear that about Americans.”

  “Colonel Webster is outraged. At least I can wash out this blond hair and get rid or the uniform, right?”

  “Wrong,” said Witkowski. “Keep both awhile longer. You can’t go back to your own name and you’ve got the proper ID as Webster. It’s been leaked, and by keeping it that way we may find the mole here. The circle is tight and we’re watching the few who know, and they’re damned few. Maybe only the marines, Reynolds, and that fruit-juiced salesman Lewis, who’s probably going from door to igloo door in some tundra somewhere.”

  “If Reynolds leaked it to the right people, measure me for a coffin!”

  “Not necessarily. You’re guarded, Colonel. By the way, did Karin tell you? Wesley Sorenson has been trying to reach you. We didn’t give him your cover and he didn’t want it, but you’re to phone him.”

  “It’s next on my list. Call me back on my move to the Normandie, and get Karin out of harm’s way. How about the Normandie?”

  “For a spook, you’re not entirely subtle, Latham.”

  Drew hung up the phone and glanced at his watch. It was past midnight, past seven o’clock in D.C. He picked up the telephone and pressed the numbers for the States.

  “Yes?” said the voice of Sorenson.

  “It’s your antiques dealer from Paris.”

  “Thank heavens! Sorry I was tied up, but that’s another story, another massive headache, if not a catastrophe.”

  “Can you tell me?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Then what was so urgent?”

  “Moreau. He’s clean.”

  “That’s nice to hear. Our embassy isn’t.”

  “I gather that, so judgmentwise it’s in your court. If you’re strung out and don’t know where to turn—”

  “Hold it, Wes, I have no problem with Witkowski,” interrupted Latham.

  “Nor do I, but we don’t know who’s tapped in to him.”

  “Agreed. Someone is.”

  “Then turn to Moreau. He doesn’t know you’re alive, so before you do, reach me and I’ll play the scenario for him.”

  “He’s still cut out?”

  “One of our larger mistakes.”

  “Incidentally, Wes, did you ever hear of an Alan Reynolds, embassy comm center?”

  “Can’t say as I have.”

  “Wish we hadn’t. He was a neo.”

  “Was?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “I suppose that’s a blessing.”

  “Can’t say that it is. We wanted him alive.”

  “Things go wrong sometimes. Stay in touch.”

  20

  Gerhardt Kroeger labored over the fax from Bonn, a code book in his left hand, a pencil in his right. Carefully he inserted the proper letters above the coded words of the message. The nearer he came to completing the task, the more excited was his state of mind, excited but controlled, the scientist in him demanding total concentration. Finished at last, elation swept over him. Their informer at the American Embassy had succeeded where the vaunted Blitzkriezer had failed. The mole’s information was flawed, but he had found the surviving Latham! His last source remained nameless, but he claimed it was irrefutable, a person he had cultivated over the years, a woman for whom he had done many favors, now living far beyond her means. She would not lie to him for two specific reasons, the first being her current expensive way of life; the second and far more powerful, the threat of exposure. They were the usual components in keeping an inner source on a chain.

  Where the informer was in error was his conviction that the Latham who had survived the assassination attempt was not Harry Latham but his brother, Drew Latham, the Consular Operations officer. Kroeger knew that was preposterous; the evidence was overwhelmingly to the contrary, evidence from so many different quarters, it could not have been manufactured. Beyond the police reports, the press, and the government’s widespread dragnet for the killers, there was the Deuxième’s Moreau and his associate. The latter had seen Harry Latham get back on the Metro train after the gunfire. Of all the officials in French Intelligence, Moreau was the last who would dare lie to the Brotherhood. Sh
ould he do so, he would become a pariah, a man disgraced beyond redemption. Scores of financial transfers to his account in Bern guaranteed it.

  My inner source, concluded the message from Bonn, tells me that Documents and Research mocked up papers for a Colonel Anthony Webster, a military identification card, and an embassy requisition for rooms at the Hotel Inter-Continental on the rue de Castiglione. The same source further states she briefly saw the plastic ID card. The inserted photograph was obviously also mocked, a man with familiar features but with blond hair rather than dark brown, and wearing a uniform and large-framed glasses. Although she has never seen a photograph of Harry Latham, she believes the man in the picture is his brother, Drew Latham, a Consular Operations officer. According to embassy records, authorized by security, the body of Drew Latham was flown back to the family in the United States. However, my own research, including the manifest records of American diplomatic aircraft, shows no such transfer for the date in question. Therefore, in my judgment, the Latham at the Inter-Continental is not Harry Latham but his brother. Together with embassy security and the Dutch woman, De Vries, they have mounted a strategy to entrap a member or members of our Brotherhood. What the nature of the trap is I hope to learn tonight, as I will post myself outside Latham’s hotel, and if it takes all night and all day, I will take him and learn. Or I will kill him in the method prescribed.

  Rubbish! thought Kroeger. Brothers frequently have similar features. Why would the Americans lie about the slain Latham? There was no reason to, and every reason not to! Harry Latham’s list was the key to the global search for the reemerging Nazis everywhere. They needed him, which was why they were going to such lengths to keep him alive, from enlisting the contentious Antinayous to issuing false military identification cards and moving him from hotel to hotel. Harry Latham/Alexander Lassiter was an intelligence tiger; he mourned his brother and wanted revenge at all costs. Little did he know that in roughly twenty-eight hours it wouldn’t make any difference to him; he would be dead. But it did to Gerhardt Kroeger. He had to find him and blow his head apart. Now he knew where to go, hoping rather desperately that their informer had already performed the execution—properly.