The Apocalypse Watch

  It was two-ten in the morning and Kroeger put on his jacket and a light raincoat; the raincoat was necessary if only to conceal the large, heavy-calibered pistol that held six Black Talon shells. Each bullet penetrated the flesh and spread on impact like a lethal Roman candle, leaving total destruction in its wake.

  “You’re being picked up at three o’clock sharp,” said Witkowski.

  “Not before?” asked Latham.

  “Hell, it’s only forty-five minutes. By the time you come down, I want a unit in the lobby and a team in the street. That takes a little organization, proper civilian clothes and all.”

  “I approve. What about Karin?”

  “She’s out of harm’s way, as you wanted. Blond wig and all, as I think you suggested.”

  “Where?”

  “Not where you are.”

  “You’re all heart, Stanley.”

  “You sound like my mother, God rest her soul.”

  “Why can’t I wish the same for yours?”

  “Because you always want instant gratification, and I won’t permit it.… One of my people will pick up your luggage and attaché case fifteen minutes before you go down. If anyone asks where you’re off to, just tell him you can’t sleep. Another of your strolls outside. We’ll take care of the hotel later.”

  “You really believe Reynolds tipped off other neos here in Paris?”

  “Frankly, no, because from what we can piece together, his killer platoon is gone—who was he going to reach? No one in Germany could get here in time, and this Kroeger’s a doctor, not an assassin. My judgment is that he’s here to confirm, not to pull any triggers, assuming he knows how. Reynolds was acting solo because he’d been spotted in the street outside of my place and wanted to make up for it. Killing you would have given him points.”

  “We can’t be sure he knew he was spotted, Stanley.”

  “Really? Then why didn’t he show up at the embassy in the morning? Remember, chłopak, two neos got away while surviving my externals—”

  “The fire escapes and the rug, right?” interrupted Drew.

  “You’re getting brighter. If A equals B and B equals C, then it’s a good bet that A equals C. Not a bad rule to go by.”

  “Now you sound like Harry.”

  “Thanks for the compliment. Get yourself ready.”

  Latham packed his suitcase rapidly, which was easy because he had barely unpacked, taking out only his civilian trousers and blazer, an embassy attaché’s uniform of the day. Now the waiting began, minutes ticked off within his prison walls. Then his telephone rang; expecting Witkowski, he picked it up. “Yes, what is it now?”

  “What is what? It’s Karin, my dear.”

  “Jesus, where are you?”

  “I swore not to tell you—”

  “Bullshit!”

  “No, Drew, it’s called protection. The colonel tells me he’s moving you—please, I don’t care to know where.”

  “This is getting ridiculous.”

  “Then you don’t know our enemy. I just want you to be careful, very careful.”

  “You heard about tonight?”

  “Reynolds? Yes, Witkowski told me, which is why I’m calling you. I can’t get through to the colonel; his line’s busy, which means he’s constantly on the phone to the embassy, but something occurred to me only moments ago, and someone other than me should know about it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Alan Reynolds frequently came down to D and R on one pretext or another, usually concerning our maps and transportation information.”

  “No one thought it was odd?” Latham broke in.

  “Not really. It’s easier than calling the airlines or tracking train schedules, or, even worse, buying road maps in small-lettered French. Ours are in legible English.”

  “But you thought it was strange, right?”

  “Only after the colonel told me about tonight, not before, frankly. Many of our people take weekend trips all over France, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain. Especially those whose tours in Paris are limited. No, Drew, it was something else, and that was strange.”

  “What was it?”

  “On two occasions when I went back to Transport, I saw Reynolds walking out of the last aisle before the Transport door. I suppose I thought something like, ‘Oh, he has a friend in one of the offices and is arranging a lunch or a dinner,’ or some such thing.”

  “And now you’re thinking something else?”

  “Yes, but I could be quite wrong. All of us in D and R work with degrees of confidential materials, much of it not deserving the designation confidential, but it’s common knowledge that those in the last aisle, the farthest from the door, deal solely with maximum-classified information.”

  “A pecking order?” asked Latham. “From the first to the last aisle degrees of confidentiality?”

  “Not at all,” replied Karin. “The offices are simply different. When one is working on highly secret material, he or she moves into the last aisle, where the computers are far more inclusive and the communications set up for instant contact worldwide. I’ve worked there three times since I arrived here.”

  “How many offices in the last aisle?”

  “Six on each side of the central corridor.”

  “Which side did you see Reynolds in?”

  “The left side. I turned my head to the left, I remember that.”

  “Both times?”

  “Yes.”

  “What were the days, the dates, you saw him?”

  “Good Lord, I don’t know. It was over several weeks, going back a month or two.”

  “Try to think, Karin.”

  “If I could pinpoint them, I would, Drew. At the time, I simply didn’t consider it important.”

  “It is. He is.”

  “Why?”

  “Because your instincts are right. Witkowski says there’s another Alan Reynolds at the embassy, another mole, someone very high up and very inside.”

  “I’ll get a calendar and do my best to isolate the weeks, then the days. I’ll try like mad to recall what I was working on.”

  “Would it help to get into your office at the embassy?”

  “That would mean getting into the supercomputer, which is somewhere below our own cellars. It stores everything for five years because our own papers are destroyed.”

  “It can be arranged.”

  “Even if it can, I haven’t the vaguest idea how to operate it.”

  “Someone does.”

  “It’s two-thirty in the morning, my darling.”

  “I don’t care if it’s half past the third moon! Courtland can order in whoever operates it, and if he can’t, Wesley Sorenson can, and if he can’t, the goddamn President can!”

  “Getting angry won’t help, Drew.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you, I’m not Harry.”

  “I loved Harry, but he was never you either. Do what you have to do. In your anger, which is probably the only way it can be done.”

  Latham depressed the lever, disconnecting the call, then immediately dialed the embassy, demanding to speak to Ambassador Courtland. “I don’t care what time it is!” he shouted when the operator objected. “This is a matter of national security, and I’m under direct orders from Washington’s Consular Operations.”

  “Yes, this is Ambassador Courtland. What can be so urgent at this hour?”

  “Is this phone secure, sir?” asked Latham, lowering his voice to a whisper.

  “I’ll put you on hold and take it in another room. It’s constantly swept, and besides, my wife is asleep.” Twenty seconds later Courtland continued on an upstairs telephone. “All right, who are you and what’s this all about?”

  “It’s Drew Latham, sir—”

  “My God, you’re dead! I don’t understand—”

  “You don’t have to understand, Mr. Ambassador. Just find our computer whizzes and order them down to the underground super stuff.”

  “That’s
pretty heavy—my God, you were killed!”

  “Sometimes we get too complicated, but please, do as I ask.… Also, you have the capability. Break into Witkowski’s phone and order him to call me.”

  “Where are you?”

  “He knows. Do it quickly. I’m expected to leave here in fifteen minutes, but I can’t until I speak to him.”

  “All right, all right, whatever you say.… I guess I should mention that I’m glad you’re alive.”

  “So am I. Go to it, Mr. Ambassador.”

  Three minutes later Latham’s phone rang. “Stanley?”

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  “Get Karin and me to the embassy as soon as possible.” Drew explained in a few emphatic words what De Vries told him about Alan Reynolds.

  “A couple of minutes won’t change the scenario, young man. Stick to the schedule I’ve set, and I’ll reroute you to the embassy and meet you both there.”

  Latham waited; Witkowski’s marine, in civilian clothes, arrived and took his suitcase and attaché case. “Come down in four minutes, sir,” said the man courteously. “We’re prepared.”

  “Are you people always so polite in these situations?” asked Latham.

  “It doesn’t help to be uptight, sir. It blurs your focus.”

  “Why do I think I’ve heard that before?”

  “I don’t know. See you downstairs.”

  Three minutes later, Drew walked out the door and went to the elevators. At that hour the ride down was swift, the lobby practically deserted except for a few late-night revelers, Japanese and Americans, by and large, all of whom disappeared into the bank of elevators. Latham strode across the marble floor, every inch the military man, when suddenly, ear-shattering gunshots exploded, echoing off the walls, emanating from the mezzanine balcony. Drew lunged toward a space between the lobby furniture, his eyes riveted on the two men behind the concierge’s desk. He saw the chest and stomach of one literally explode, a monstrous detonation that sent the man’s bloody intestines hurling across the lobby; the other raised his hands as his head blew apart, skull tissue flying everywhere. Madness! Additional gunfire then filled the huge ornate enclosure, followed by voices, shouting in English with American accents.

  “We’ve got him!” yelled a man, also on the mezzanine level. “In the legs!”

  “He’s alive!” roared another. “We’ve got the son of a bitch! He’s nuts! He’s crying and moaning in German!”

  “Take him to the embassy,” said a calmer voice in the lobby, turning to the terrified clerks behind the front desk. “This is an antiterrorist operation,” he continued. “It’s over now, and you may assure the owners that all expenses for damages will be covered, as well as generous compensation for the families of your personnel who tragically lost their lives. However meaningless it may appear to you now, they died heroes, and a grateful Europe will honor them.… Hurry up!”

  The horrified clerks stood frozen behind the marble counter. The man on the left began to weep as his colleague slowly, as if in a trance, reached for a telephone.

  Latham and De Vries embraced under the disapproving eyes of Colonel Stanley Witkowski and Ambassador Daniel Courtland in the latter’s office at the American Embassy.

  “May we get to the issue—the issues—at hand, if you please?” said the ambassador. “Dr. Gerhardt Kroeger will survive and our two-man computer team will arrive shortly. Actually one of them is here now, and his superior is being flown in from his holiday in the Pyrenees. Will somebody now tell me what the hell is going on?”

  “Certain intelligence operations are beyond your purview, Mr. Ambassador,” replied Witkowski, “for your own deniability, sir.”

  “You know, I really find that phrase rather obscene, Colonel. Since when did civilian intelligence, or military intelligence, or any of the clandestine exercises take precedence over the State Department’s ultimate control?”

  “That’s why Consular Operations was created, sir,” answered Drew. “The purpose was to coordinate between State, the administration, and the intelligence services.”

  “Then I can’t say that you have, have you?”

  “In crises we can’t afford a bureaucratic delay,” said Latham firmly. “And I don’t give a goddamn if it costs me my job. I want the person, the people, who killed my brother. Because they’re part of a much larger disease, and it’s got to be stopped—not by bureaucratic debate, but by individual decision.”

  Courtland leaned back in his chair. Finally, he spoke. “And you, Colonel?”

  “I’ve been a soldier all my life, but here I must reject the chain of command. I can’t wait for some Congress to declare war. We are at war.”

  “And you, Mrs. de Vries?”

  “I gave you my husband, what more do you want?”

  Ambassador Daniel Courtland leaned forward in his chair, both hands on his forehead, his fingers massaging his flesh. “I’ve lived with compromises all my diplomatic life,” he said. “Maybe it’s time to stop.” He raised his head. “I’ll probably be demoted to Tierra del Fuego, but go for it, you rogues. Because you are right, there are times when we can’t wait.”

  The three rogues were taken down to the supercomputer thirty feet below the cellars. It was both enormous and frightening; an entire ten-foot wall was covered by a plate of thick glass with whirling disks behind it, dozens spinning and abruptly stopping, trapping information from the skies.

  “Hi, I’m Jack Rowe, one half of your deep, under the-earth geniuses,” said a pleasant-looking sandy-haired man of less than thirty years. “My colleague, if he’s sober, will be here in a few minutes. He landed at Orly a half hour ago.”

  “We didn’t expect to find drunks,” exclaimed Witkowski. “This is serious business!”

  “Everything’s serious here, Colonel—yes, I know who you are, it’s standard operating procedure. You too, Cons-Op guy, and the lady who probably could have run NATO if she were a man and wore a uniform. There are no secrets here. They all spew out on the disks.”

  “Can we get at them?” said Drew.

  “Not until my buddy arrives. You see, he has the other code, which I’m not allowed to have.”

  “To save time,” said Karin, “can you collate the data from my office with specific dates as I recalled them?”

  “Don’t have to, it’s one and the same. You give us the dates, and whatever you recorded on those days will show up on the screen. You couldn’t change it or erase it if you wanted to.”

  “I don’t care to do either.”

  “That’s a relief. When I got the hurry-up from the Big Man, I figured we maybe had one of those Rose Mary Wood things we read about in history books.”

  “History books?” Witkowski’s brows arched in indignation.

  “Well, I was about six or seven when all that stuff happened, Colonel. Maybe history is the wrong word.”

  “I hope to kiss a pig it was.”

  “That’s an interesting phrase,” said the young, sandy-haired technician. “Root linguistic vernaculars are kind of a hobby with me. That’s either Irish or Middle European, Slavic probably, where sus scrofa—pigs or hogs—were valuable property. To ‘hope to kiss a pig’ implied ownership, a status symbol, actually. And if you supplant the a with a my, therefore my pig, it meant you were either pretty rich or soon expected to be.”

  “Is that what you do with computers?” asked an astonished Latham.

  “You’d be surprised at the mountains of incidental intelligence these Big Birds can hold. I once traced a Latin chant, a religious chant, to a pagan cult in Corsica.”

  “That’s very interesting, young man,” interrupted Witkowski, “but our concerns here are speed and accuracy.”

  “We’ll give you both, Colonel.”

  “Incidentally,” Witkowski said, “the phrase I used was Polish.”

  “I’m not sure of that,” said Karin. “I believe it stems from Gaelic roots, Irish in fact.”

  “And I don’t give a damn!”
cried Drew. “Will you please concentrate on the days, the time spans, you can remember, Karin?”

  “I already have,” replied De Vries, opening her purse. “Here they are, Mr. Rowe.” She handed the computer expert a torn piece of notebook paper.

  “These are all over the place,” said the technician partial to linguistic vernaculars.

  “They’re in sequence, it’s the best I could do.”

  “No problem for the biggest bird in France.”

  “Why do you call this thing a bird?” asked Latham.

  “ ’Cause it flies into the ether of infinite recall.”

  “Sorry I asked.”

  “But this helps, Mrs. de Vries. I’ll program my side, so when Joel arrives, he can key in and the sideshow can begin.”

  “Sideshow?”

  “The screen, Colonel, the screen.”

  As Rowe inserted the codes that released his side of the massive computer, and typed in the data, the metal door of the subterranean complex opened and another technician, this one perhaps in his early thirties, perhaps older, walked in. What distinguished him from his colleague was a long, neatly bound ponytail, held in place by a small blue ribbon at the nape of his neck.

  “Hi,” he said pleasantly, “I’m Joel Greenberg, the resident general here. How’re you doin’, Jackman?”

  “Waiting for you, Genius Two.”

  “Hey, I’m Numero Uno, remember?”

  “I just replaced you, I got here first,” replied Rowe, still typing.

  “You must be the exalted Colonel Witkowski,” said Greenberg, extending his hand to the perplexed chief of security, whose glare did not convey much pleasure at the sight of the slender man in blue jeans and an open-collared bush jacket, to say nothing of the ponytail. “It’s an honor to meet you, sir, and I mean that.”

  “At least you’re sober,” said the colonel awkwardly.

  “I wasn’t last night. Wow, did I do a mean flamenco!… And you have to be Mrs. de Vries. The rumors weren’t wrong, ma’am. You’re a gorgeous, A-plus.”

  “I’m also an officer-attaché of the embassy, Mr. Greenberg.”

  “I’ll bet I outrank you, but who’s counting.… I apologize, ma’am, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m just sort of the ebullient type. No offense, okay?”